Estadio Francisco Rivera Escobar is a multi-use

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

in Palmira,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. It is 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 has a capacity of 15,300 people. Local club

Orsomarso Orsomarso ( Calabrian: ) is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Cosenza The province of Cosenza ( it, provincia di Cosenza) is a province in the Calabria region of southern Italy. Its capital is the city of Cosenza. It contains 150 ''comu ...

plays its home matches at this stadium, with Internacional F.C. de Palmira joining as a second tenant starting from

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History

The stadium was built in the first years of the decade of the 1950s, and was named after Francisco Rivera Escobar, a physician from the town who performed several civic functions in the 1940s and 1950s, being mayor, chairman of the municipal council, and commander of the fire department. Although the stadium has been primarily used by teams from Palmira that have played in the second-tier competition

Categoría Primera B Categoría Primera B, commonly referred to as Torneo BetPlay Dimayor due to sponsorship by online betting company BetPlay (formerly ''Torneo Águila''), is the second-division football league in Colombia. Format DIMAYOR has applied a new forma ...

such as Palmira F.C. (1992–1994), Univalle (1998), Expreso Palmira (1999–2001),

Deportes Palmira Deportes Palmira was a Colombian football (soccer) team, based in Palmira, Colombia, Palmira. The club was founded in 2009 and played in Categoría Primera B. The club was formerly known as Girardot F.C. based in Girardot, Cundinamarca, Girardot ...

(2009), and

(from 2016 onwards), it has also served as an alternate home stadium for the teams from the neighbouring

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...

when

Estadio Olímpico Pascual Guerrero The Estadio Olimpico Pascual Guerrero is a football stadium, also used for athletics, concerts, and rugby sevens, in Santiago de Cali, Colombia which is named to honor the poet Pascual Guerrero. The stadium and the sports complex that surrounds i ...

has been unavailable, with

América de Cali América de Cali S. A., best known as América de Cali or América, is a Colombian professional football club based in Cali. It competes in the Categoría Primera A, the top-flight league of Colombian football. The team plays its home games at ...

using it for the first time in 1954 for their league campaign. América used the stadium again in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

and

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, as Estadio Pascual Guerrero was closed for remodeling works ahead of the

2001 Copa América The 2001 Copa América was held in Colombia, from 11 to 29 July. It was organised by CONMEBOL, South America's football governing body. Colombia won the tournament for the 1st time without conceding a goal. Brazil national football team, Brazil ...

and the

2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 18th FIFA U-20 World Cup. Colombia hosted the tournament between 29 July and 20 August 2011, with matches being played in eight cities. The tournament was won by Brazil who claimed their fifth title. At a FIFA ...

, respectively. In recent years, the stadium has undergone several remodeling works aimed at upgrading its infrastructure, starting from 2012 when it was structurally reinforced and its eastern stand was demolished and rebuilt. An athletic track was installed in 2015, ahead of the Department Games which were hosted by the city that year. In 2017, the stadium underwent further remodeling and expansion works with the construction of the north and south stands, which increased its capacity from 9,000 to 15,300 spectators. In addition to that, the installation of seating and the construction of media booths, press room, commercial areas, VIP room, sound system, elevator for the western stand, and the improvement of dressing rooms, access facilities for disabled people, and sanitary batteries were carried out. The stadium's lighting system was upgraded in 2019. The stadium also served as a venue for the 2021 Junior Pan American Games, hosting the archery competitions.

References

{{reflist F Multi-purpose stadiums in Colombia E