Tbilisi Palace of Sports
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Article summary
The 9,450-capacity Tbilisi Palace of Sports in the Georgian capital opened in 1961 and was renovated six years ago, playing host to basketball, handball, judo, tennis, boxing and now futsal.
Article top media content
Article body
Capacity: 9,450
Opened: 1961 (renovated 2007)
• The landmark venue in the Georgian capital was first used primarily by basketball's BC Dinamo Tbilisi and indeed remains the largest arena built specially for that sport in the former Soviet Union.
• It was reopened in August 2007 by Tbilisi mayor Gigi Ugulava, with a new, larger playing surface and generally improved facilities for athletes, spectators and media.
• As well as basketball, the arena stages handball, judo, tennis, boxing and major concerts.
• The Palace of Sport has a long history with futsal and in the second season of UEFA club competion staged a 2002/03 first qualifying round group hosted by Iberia Star Tbilisi. Iberia returned there for the 2011/12 main round (including a record crowd for that stage of 4,500 v Geneva Futsal) and Georgia played out a thrilling FIFA Futsal World Cup preliminary round mini-tournament at the venue in October 2011.
• Iberia then topped a 2012/13 UEFA Futsal Cup elite round group there in October, a 5,000 crowd watching them beat SL Benfica to reach the finals, which the Palace of Sport will stage.