The construction and the early years

With the rising popularity of the sport in Zagreb, the local football club HAŠK, which was one of the first multi-sports club in Croatia, decided to build a new stadium for their club. They bought the ground in the Svetice neighbourhood in Zagreb, which lies on the opposite side of the Maksimir Park, from the Archdiocese of Zagreb. HAŠK built a wooden stand with a capacity of 6,000, which was also the first ground with a proper stand in Zagreb at that time. The stadium was opened on 5 May 1912, and at the opening ceremony of the new stadium, HAŠK and their city rival, HŠK Građanski Zagreb, played several friendly matches to commemorate the opening.^[3] Due to the close relationship and alliance of HAŠK and HŠK Građanski Zagreb and the latter one playing at the Stadion Koturaška, which was in a poor state, Građanski also started playing their home matches at the new Stadium Maksimir.

On 26 May 1941, a representative of the Ustashe fascist government of the Independent State of Croatia addressed young Zagreb students at their meeting at the Maksimir Stadium, and at one point ordered the Serbian and Jewish students to be segregated, but the children disobeyed.^[4][5] Soon afterwards, in June 1941, rebel youths burned the stadium down.^[5] In 1977, a movie Operation Stadium was made to commemorate the segregation incident.

After World War II and the development

After World War II, HAŠK and Građanski got dissolved by the newly established communist regime of Yugoslavia and a new club, FD Dinamo Zagreb, inherited the clubs' colours, honours and the ground and is, therefore, the direct successor of HAŠK and HŠK Građanski Zagreb. When the UEFA Euro 1976 final tournament was held in Yugoslavia, Maksimir hosted the Netherlands v. Czechoslovakia semi-final match and the Netherlands v. Yugoslavia third place match. Maksimir was the central venue for the 1987 Summer Universiade hosted by the city of Zagreb.

In 1990, several events happened at Maksimir. On 13 May, the Dinamo Zagreb–Red Star Belgrade riot took place, an infamous riot involving Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade supporters. The last match of the Yugoslavia national football team was hosted at Maksimir on 3 June. On 17 October of the same year, Croatia played the United States in what was Croatia's first match in the modern era.

In modern times

In 1998, plans were made for a massive renovation, and the first phase started the same year. The old northern stand was demolished and a new one built within a year. This renovation increased Maksimir's seating capacity to 38,079. After 1992, for 16 years the Croatian football team had a proud unbeaten record at this stadium in any competitive match, however, on 10 September 2008 (two years after suffering a 2–0 defeat at the same venue) England became the first team to beat Croatia in Zagreb, winning 4–1, ending a thirty match undefeated streak.

In the summer of 2011, a little, but much needed "facelifting" was made on the stadium. All seats were replaced, a new drainage system, under-soil heating and automatic watering were installed along with a new turf, the athletic track was covered with blue artificial grass and all brick surfaces were covered in blue cloth.

2020 earthquake

The earthquake, which happened on the morning of 22 March 2020, damaged the structural stability of the stadium. After an inspection by a structural engineer, the Maksimir stadium was deemed "temporarily unusable". The eastern stand, which is also the biggest single stand by capacity, took the most damage and is awaiting the final decision following a detailed building inspection. While waiting, the club is allowed to host matches on the Maksimir stadium, but with the eastern stand being closed for viewers.^[6]

In August 2023, Maksimir was ranked the third ugliest football stadium in Europe according to research carried out by the Money agency based on reviews on platforms such as Google, TripAdvisor and Football Ground.^[7]

Kajzerica Proposal

The design competition for the new stadium was won by architect Hrvoje Njirić in May 2008.^[9] The winning design, nicknamed "Blue Volcano" (Croatian: Plavi vulkan), would have a capacity of 55,000 and would include a blue-coloured polycarbonate dome exterior and a cloud-like structure suspended above the stadium covered in photovoltaic panels.^[10]

The referendum about the proposal, which had originally been scheduled for June 2008, was postponed several times since and has not been held. In October 2012, the project was abandoned,^[11] to be briefly revived in 2013 with an eye to a possible UEFA Euro 2020 bid,^[12] and again in 2018, following Croatia's historic success in the World Cup.^[13]

Recent Plans

There were talks in 2018 that the stadium was going to be demolished and a new, state-of-the-art stadium would be built on the same location. In 2019, Dinamo Zagreb announced that it will demolish Maksimir and build a new stadium on its own, without the help of the Croatian Government, but needed confirmation from the governing body of Zagreb and its mayor, Milan Bandić. Shortly after, it was announced that Dinamo Zagreb and the City of Zagreb will enter a joint collaboration to build the new stadium. The new stadium was supposed to be built on the ground of the current Maksimir Stadium and have had a capacity of 30,000 spectators. The stadium would have had a garage, shopping centre, hotel and several fan corners. After the 2020 Zagreb earthquake, the talks were, once again, put on hold.

Between 1997 and 2015, a total of HRK 800 million (c. €108 million) has been spent renovating the stadium.^[14]

As of October 2022, Marko Milić of the Croatian government, has guaranteed that there will be a new Maksimir built with help of the government and the city of Zagreb.

In June 2023, the Mayor of Zagreb Tomislav Tomašević announced plans to reconstruct Stadion Kranjčevićeva, the second major stadium of Zagreb. The plans included the increase of the stadium capacity to 12,000 seats with a total remodelling of all four stands.^[15] At the unveiling of the plans, Tomašević said that the plan was for Dinamo Zagreb to leave Maksimir and play out of Kranjčevićeva on completion in 2025 so that the old stadium at Maksimir can be demolished and a new stadium built in its place.

In July 2023, the two major football stadiums in Croatia, Maksimir and Poljud were declared sports buildings of national interest by the Croatian Government.^[16] The decision was said to confirm the government's intention to construct a new stadium in Maksimir and complete significant renovations to Poljud.

In December 2023, the Croatian Government, the City of Zagreb, and the Zagreb Archdiocese reached a resolution on a land rights dispute that would allow the construction of a new stadium at the location of the current Maksimir Stadium to proceed.^[17] This was seen previously as one of the more difficult hurdles to overcome in relation to the stadium reconstruction process.