As The Street Food Guy I spent a lot of time and energy visiting stadiums and ideally seeing matches. Visiting Raqqa football stadium was though and is different.
Raqqa the capital of the Islamic State which meant football took a back seat to much more evil acts. Nowadays things are getting better, but there is still very little football here.
Raqqa Football Stadium
The Raqqa Maniacal Stadium was built in 2006 with a capacity of 20,000. Initially it housed Al-Shabab SC (Syria) who officially currently play in the Syrian sec and tier, the reality though is that the Syrian Civil War put paid to football here.
Things though were to take a much more evil turn when Islamic State rolled up and made Raqqa their capital. After this the stadium was used as a place to sell sex slaves, public executions and towards the end as a prison. It is well documented that serious ham rights abuses occurred at the prison here, with their still being lots of evidence, including bars of this period in history.
Towards the end of the war it was a key battle ground and there are still numerous bullet holes around Raqqa Stadium, as well as remnants of grenades.
There is though at least some semblance of peace here now, if not football.
The Raqqa Stadium in 2024
We acme here as part of our delegation to Rojava and were welcomed by the caretaker. She (something not possible during ISIS times) told us that sadly the stadium was rarely used, with Raqqa all but disconnected to “federal” Syria and Rojava lxcjimg any formalized league. There had though recently been a representative match of which the city had won against another Rojava team.
The area does remain open with runners and simply sports fans coming here to relax. One such older gentlemen called Mohammed told me “We miss sport here and need it back and not just football, but athletics. If we give kids things to do it is much easier to combat extremism”. He was though not all that confident that this ouch be achieved in the short term.
Can you visit Raqqa Stadium?
So long as you can get into Rojava and then drive two Raqqa and indeed have these permissions then visiting the stadium is relatively easy.
It should though be kept in mind that this is very much dark tourism, but of the much more recent past. Therefore if you do visit Raqqa stadium give it the respect that it and its victims deserve.