The Great Strahov Stadium may be one of football’s best-kept secrets.

Located in Prague and with a reported capacity of up to 250,000 people, the venue is among the largest stadiums in the world, but only those who keep a close eye Sparta Prague are likely to know this.

West Ham are among the big name football clubs to grace the training pitch of the sprawling Great Strahov StadiumCredit: Getty

That’s because the huge arena no longer hosts competitive sport, and is now used as a training ground by the 14-time Czech champions.

Despite having access to a ground that dwarfs the likes of the Santiago Bernabeu and the Camp Nou, when Sparta turned out in this season’s Champions League, it was in a far more modest venue.

They played all of their home fixtures in Europe’s elite competition at the 19,000-capacity Letna Stadium.

And remarkably, the Reds’ home ground is actually more than 10 times smaller than their training facility.

Designed by Czech architect Alois Dryak, the Great Strahov Stadium was built in 1926 and was initially used for gymnastic events between the First and Second World Wars.

Then as the conflict across Europe spread, it later hosted an anti-war event in 1938 which drew a staggering 348,000 crowd.

At its peak, the sprawling sight covered 63,000 square metres (the equivalent of nine football pitches), while in 1960, a record 750,000 gymnasts took part in one event.

Though the stadium continued to host gymnastics throughout the last century, the fall of communism in the late 1980s prompted a new, diverse schedule.

It would soon become a concert venue, welcoming the likes of The Rolling Stones, Guns N’ Roses, U2 and Bon Jovi.

The facility’s huge capacity was put to good use here, with the Rolling Stones drawing crowds of over 100,000 on two separate occasions.

The Great Strahov Stadium is a huge sporting venue, which also hosted about 15,000 anti-globalization protesters in 2000Credit: AFP

It was a thriving gymnastics venue for large portions of the 20th centuryCredit: Getty

Sparta Prague’s home ground, the Letna Stadium, hosts just a fraction of their training ground’s capacityCredit: Getty

However, after its growing popularity in the 1990s, the Great Strahov then found itself being left to rot in the years that followed.

As the stands were slowly left to fall into ruin, the stadium faced calls to have it demolished at the beginning of the 21st century, although these were thwarted when it gained UNESCO Heritage Site status in 2003.

There were then plans to turn the site into a national stadium, tech hub and even an Olympic village as part of Prague’s bid to host the 2016 Games, which were later awarded to Rio.

But with these projects failing to materialise, it now serves as a training ground for Sparta Prague.

The Great Strahov currently houses eight football pitches within its confines, with an extra two futsal pitches also present.

In 2023, West Ham used the venue for training ahead of their historic Europa Conference League final victory over Fiorentina, their first major trophy win since 1981.

The Great Strahov also hosted Soviet-style Spartakiads under Communist rule, a type of multi-sport festivalCredit: Getty

The Prague site was renowned as one of the world’s top sporting venuesCredit: Getty

It is now divided into eight football pitches, with grass growing from the stands in the abandoned stadiumCredit: Getty

But despite its continued use, large parts of Strahov remain abandoned and unused.

The pitches are the only functional aspects left of the once great arena, with the stands being left to slowly fall apart and are no longer safely habitable.

And despite not hosting a competitive sporting event since 2019, this hasn’t stopped Prague from planning to take advantage of the huge plot of land.

It has previously been suggested the venue could be turned into a hospitality mecca in an effort to bring visitors to the city.

However, Strahov’s status as a heritage site are likely to prevent any plans to see it converted into hotels, shops and restaurants, with it currently facing an uncertain future.