Al-Shorta Stadium

About

Al-Shorta Stadium (Arabic: ملعب الشرطة) is a football stadium in Baghdad, Iraq. It is the home stadium of Iraq Stars League club Al-Shorta. It opened in 2025 on the site of the original Al-Shorta Stadium, which had stood from 1990 until 2014. It has a seating capacity of 10,089. The construction of the stadium was initiated as the centrepiece of the Al-Shorta Sports City project, which was also planned to include a training ground, a hotel, a club office, a swimming pool, a multi-purpose closed hall, a recreation club, restaurants, theatres and a shopping centre. The project was announced in 2013 and construction began in 2014, but it was suspended in 2015 due to instability in the country and disputes over payments. The project resumed in late 2022 but was scaled down to only include the all-seater stadium and training ground. The stadium is located at the club's headquarters on Falastin Street, adjacent to the Ministry of Water Resources building in Al-Rusafa.

In their early years, the Al-Shorta Select XI played their home matches on the playing field at the team's headquarters, located on what would become Falastin Street in the early 1960s. After the establishment of the Iraqi National Clubs League, the club played their home games at the Local Administration Stadium in Al-Mansour and later at Al-Furusiya Stadium owned by the Ministry of Interior. In the 1980s, the club decided to build their own stadium at the club's headquarters, with construction of the four stands being overseen by club president Abdul-Qadir Zeinal and work being carried out by club workers and volunteers. Al-Shorta Stadium was opened for its first match on 23 December 1990 with Al-Shorta beating Al-Tijara 3–2. The stadium was able to hold 8,634 people. A white hall was also constructed on the side of the field (named the Abid Kadhim Hall in honour of former player and manager Abid Kadhim), which can hold approximately 2,000 people. Aside from a small number of seats in the roofed VIP section of the main stand, the stadium did not have seats. Instead, each stand was arranged as a series of rising steps.

After being elected as the club's new president on 18 May 2012, Ayad Bunyan presented the idea of constructing a new sports complex for the club, citing the need to improve the club's infrastructure across various sports. The new Al-Shorta Sports City project was formally announced on 30 January 2013 at an initial estimated cost of 42.5 billion Iraqi dinars. The complex would include an all-seater stadium and a training ground with an athletics track, as well as a hotel, a club office, an indoor swimming pool with 1,500 seats, a multi-purpose closed hall with 2,500 seats, a recreation club with sports facilities, restaurants, theatres and a shopping centre. It would be constructed by a consortium of Swedish company Nordic Sport and Emirati company AKG Engineering, with materials and other construction services also being provided by Swedish companies Royal Arena Sport and Rantzows, and turf being provided by Dutch companies Redexim and Edel Grass. On 18 March 2013, Nordic Sport released the initial designs for Al-Shorta Sports City, ahead of signing the official contract for the project with the Ministry of Interior at the end of the following month. Börje Österberg, the owner of Nordic Sport, announced the initiation of construction of Al-Shorta Sports City on 16 December 2013. The club also signed a sponsorship deal with Royal Arena Sport (later renamed to Nynord), a regional partner of Nordic Sport led by project director Majid Al-Jaderi, which saw Royal Arena Sport's logo being displayed on the club's shirts for their 2014 AFC Champions League qualifying play-off match and subsequently for the remainder of the 2013–14 season. The sponsorship deal was renewed for the 2014–15 season.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.