The Busan Gudeok Stadium ( ko, 부산 구덕 운동장;

Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...

: 釜山九德運動場) is a

multi-purpose stadium A multi-purpose stadium is a type of stadium designed to be easily used by multiple types of events. While any stadium could potentially host more than one type of sport or event, this concept usually refers to a specific design philosophy tha ...

Busan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...

, South Korea. It is currently used mostly for

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

matches. The stadium currently holds 12,349 spectators. The venue opened in September 1928 as Busan Municipal Stadium ( ko, 부산 공설 운동장). During the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...

, it hosted some of the Olympic

matches. It was also the main venue for the 1997 East Asian Games hosting the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the athletics and football competitions. Professional football team

Busan IPark Busan IPark ( ko, 부산 아이파크) is a South Korean professional football club based in Busan that competes in K League 2, the second tier of the South Korean football pyramid. Its current home ground is Busan Gudeok Stadium. The club was o ...

have played their home games at the venue since 2015 as well as between 1987 and 2002. Additionally, non-league football team Busan Transport Corporation FC have played their home games at the venue since 2006.

1988 Summer Olympics

During the

, held in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

, eight football games took place at the Gudeok stadium, including all three of

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

's matches and one semi-final match. 180 players accompanied by 72 officials from nine countries competed for eleven days from September 17 through September 27, attracting a total of 146,320 spectators or 18,290 on average per day. A total of 675 million won was spent on the stadium before the tournament to improve the electronic scoreboard and other facilities.

1959 crowd crush

On July 17, 1959, 67 persons died after heavy rain triggered a rush to a narrow entrance.

References

1988 Summer Olympics official report.
Volume 1. Part 1. p. 204.
Stadium of dreams in K-League : 구덕 운동장

External links

Busan Sports Facilities Management Center

Busan Sports Facilities Management Center

World Stadiums
Football venues in South Korea Venues of the 1988 Summer Olympics Olympic football venues Sports venues in Busan Multi-purpose stadiums in South Korea Busan IPark Sports venues completed in 1928 Venues of the 1986 Asian Games Venues of the 2002 Asian Games Asian Games football venues K League 1 stadiums K League 2 stadiums {{Summer-Olympic-venue-stub