Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium 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 ...

Bandar Seri Begawan Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB; Jawi: بندر سري بڬاوان; ) is the capital city of Brunei. It is officially a municipal area () with an area of and an estimated population of 100,700 as of 2007. It is part of Brunei-Muara District, the sm ...

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...

. It is currently used mostly for

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

matches. The stadium holds 28,000 and was opened on 23 September 1983. It was named after Bruneian Sultan

Hassanal Bolkiah Hassanal Bolkiah ibni Omar Ali Saifuddien III ( Jawi: ; born 15 July 1946) is the 29th and current Sultan and Yang di-Pertuan of Brunei since 1967 and the Prime Minister of Brunei since independence from the United Kingdom in 1984. He is one ...

Construction

Unusually for a public building in Brunei, members of the public donated and contributed towards the building of the stadium. Although the final collection of $1,102,761.57 accounted for a little more than 1.1 percent of the total building cost ($100 million), the public participation showed the Bruneians' great interest and support for this project. The entire project cost for the stadium is about $100 million.

Building

The stadium is long and wide. It can accommodate 30,000 spectators, which includes 110 seats for the royalties, 500 for the VIPs, and 3,000 in the grandstand section. It has four light towers — each is high and equipped with 108 2-kilowatt

metal-halide lamp A metal-halide lamp is an electrical lamp that produces light by an electric arc through a gaseous mixture of vaporized mercury and metal halides (compounds of metals with bromine or iodine). It is a type of high-intensity discharge (HID) ga ...

s. The

grandstand A grandstand is a normally permanent structure for seating spectators. This includes both auto racing and horse racing. The grandstand is in essence like a single section of a stadium, but differs from a stadium in that it does not wrap a ...

is covered with aluminium roofs which have a total length of and a total width of . The parking spaces can accommodate 2,785 private vehicles and 158 buses. The building is oriented in north-south direction with the grandstand located at the western section. It has a football field which fulfills

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

standards, as well as the running track which fulfills

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

standards. The stadium has a videomatrix scoreboard located at the northern section; it can display both

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and Jawi writing.

Opening

It was opened on 23 September 1983, the date was chosen to celebrate the 69th birthday of Bolkiah's father and predecessor

Omar Ali Saifuddien III Sultan Sir Omar Ali Saifuddien Sa'adul Khairi Waddien ( Jawi: ; 23 September 1914 – 7 September 1986) was the 28th Sultan of Brunei, reigning from 4 June 1950 until his abdication from the throne on 5 October 1967. He was also Brunei's fir ...

. On the evening of the opening day, a friendly football match was played between the

Brunei national football team The Brunei national football team (; recognized as Brunei Darussalam by FIFA), nicknamed ''Tebuan'' (The Wasps), is the national team of Brunei, controlled by the Football Association of Brunei Darussalam. The team was founded in 1959 and joi ...

and an invited

English Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engl ...

team,

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...

. Despite the jet lag and the humid weather, Sheffield United won 1–0. The next day another match was held between United and a Brunei invited team which ended in a 1–1 draw.

Renovation

The stadium is currently being renovated since 2021 and was expected to be completed in the middle of 2022. Home matches for the national football team was held at the

Track & Field Sports Complex Track & Field Sports Complex is a multi-use stadium in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. It is currently used mostly for football matches, track and field games. The stadium holds 1,700 people. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Track and Field Spor ...

instead.

Major events

1999

* 20th Southeast Asian Games on 7–15 August.

2002

Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy The Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy for ASEAN Youth Football Championship, is the football tournament for youth players in Southeast Asia. It was opened to football players from ASEAN member states under the age of 21 years to participate in this. The ...

on 16–26 August.

2005

on 13–25 March.

2007

on 3–12 March.

2012

on 9–23 August.

2014

on 24 February–9 March.

References

* Football venues in Brunei Darussalam Athletics (track and field) venues in Brunei

Multi-purpose stadiums Singapore Premier League venues DPMM FC Southeast Asian Games stadiums Southeast Asian Games athletics venues Southeast Asian Games football venues {{Brunei-sports-venue-stub