<\/p>\n

Key facts<\/h3>\n

Club: Panathinaikos FC | Opening: 1922 | Capacity: 16,003 seats<\/p>\n

History and description<\/h3>\n

Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium, also widely known as Leoforos, was the first proper football stadium to be built in Greece. It opened in 1922, but it took until 1928 for the first stand to be built. During the first half of its existence, Leoforos also was the standard playing venue of the Greece national team.<\/p>\n

Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium recorded its highest attendance in 1968 when 29,665 attended a Cup Winners’ Cup match between Panathinaikos and Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n

By the 1980s, the stadium was slowly falling into disrepair, and in 1984 Panathinaikos moved to the new and much larger OAKA Olympic Stadium<\/a>. They kept playing at the OAKA until in 2000 the stadium closed to get upgraded for the 2004 Olympics, and moved back to Leoforos, which received a refurbishment to make it fit\u00a0to host matches again.<\/p>\n

Following the Olympics, Panathinaikos moved back to OAKA Stadium and at the same time started exploring the possibilities to build a new stadium, focusing on the Votanikos district. These plans led to nothing though, and in 2013, being unhappy at the much-too-large OAKA, the club decided to move back to their traditional home.<\/p>\n

The plan was to upgrade Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium gradually, but this came to nothing and in 2018 Panathinaikos moved back into OAKA.<\/p>\n

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