Stade Félix Houphouët-Boigny

Laid out during the colonial period as the Stade Géo André, named for a French Olympic athlete, the Plateau stadium was renamed for Félix Houphouët-Boigny after independence and became the home ground of Ivorian football for more than half a century. Sited on the lagoon front beside the Houphouët-Boigny bridge, it hosted the fierce Abidjan derby between ASEC Mimosas and Africa Sports, two clubs whose rivalry defined domestic football in Côte d'Ivoire through the second half of the twentieth century, as well as the national team's home fixtures during multiple Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaigns before the stadium's functions shifted with the opening of the larger Alassane Ouattara stadium at Ébimpé in 2020. The stadium was demolished and rebuilt within its original footprint as part of the infrastructure programme for the Africa Cup of Nations staged in Côte d'Ivoire in January and February 2024, a renovation that replaced ageing colonial-era stands with a modern bowl while preserving the ground's historic city-centre site rather than relocating it to the periphery as many African tournament stadiums have done. That decision to rebuild on the same lagoon-front plot kept the stadium's continuity with a hundred years of Abidjan football history intact even as its capacity and facilities were brought up to contemporary standards. Its lagoon-front location makes the stands visible from the Houphouët-Boigny bridge, and match days still draw crowds through the surrounding Plateau streets in a pattern unchanged since the ground's earliest decades, and it remains the closest major stadium to Le Plateau, a short walk from the government and business district.