Hocine Aït Ahmed Stadium

Hocine Aït Ahmed Stadium (ملعب حسين آيت أحمد, Kabyle: Annar n Husine Ath Ahmed, Tamazight: ⴰⵏⵏⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵀⵓⵙⵉⵏⴻ ⴰⵜⵀ ⴰⵀⵎⴻⴷ) is a football stadium located in Boukhalfa, Tizi Ouzou, Kabylia, Algeria. Hocine Aït Ahmed Stadium is owned by the Algerian Ministry of Youth and Sport. With 50,766 seats, it is the third largest stadium in Algeria. The stadium was designed by United States-based construction company Atlas Group subsidiary Atlas Genie Civil Spa they completed the project in 2023 after 13 years of work as they started the construction on May 15, 2010. Replacing the 1 November 1954 Stadium, it is the new home ground of JS Kabylie, since 2024.

History
JS Kabylie managed to get the promise of a new stadium, to match the club's sporting ambitions, from the Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, just after the club won their third CAF Cup in a row, in 2002.

The work officially started on May 15, 2010, but several delays, conceded for various hazards, pushed the delivery of the stadium to 2023.

In May 2019, due to the end of the contractual period with the ETRHB Haddad, the project experienced yet another stoppage. He had then reached an estimated completion rate of 85%.

On July 16, 2020, Minister of Youth and Sports Sid Ali Khaldi, who was making an inspection visit to the construction site, announced the termination of the contract of the ETRHB Haddad group in charge of the realization of the stadium. He had also announced on the occasion the establishment of new specifications for the rest of the work. This is in order to launch the consultations in order to retain another company to take over the site.

In May 2020, the site was then entrusted to the public company Cosider to relaunch the 15% to 20% of the work that remained to be done. This company did not receive its service order (ODS) until September 2020. "The remaining works must be completed within a period not exceeding 12 months", i.e. before the end of 2021, according to the contract between this company and the local authorities.

On February 27, 2022, the Minister of Housing, Urban Planning and the City, Mohamed Tarek Belaribi, gave instructions to the project managers to speed up the administrative procedure to allow the resumption of construction.

In concrete terms, work did not resume until April 2022. The site was relaunched on Thursday, April 14, 2022, by the Minister for Housing, Urban Planning and the City, Tarek Belaribi, who carried out the occasion his second visit in the space of a few weeks to the site. On occasion, the company was called upon to step up the pace in order to deliver the project on time, estimated at 12 months.

On June 18, 2022, the president of the People's Assembly of the wilaya of Tizi Ouzou, Mohamed Klalèche, announced that he had called a Turkish company for reinforcements to help Cosider complete the work on time.

On September 29, 2022, the Minister of Housing, Mohamed Tarek Belaribi, carried out an inspection visit to this infrastructure and assessed the progress of the work at 45%. The Minister also announced the end of the exterior works at the end of October 2022, those at the level of the stands on November 1, and the final delivery of the new Tizi Ouzou stadium in 2023.

Name of the stadium
Many names have been suggested and discussed among the population; among them the name of Abdelkader Khalef and Mohand Chérif Hannachi because of their legacy and everything they did for JS Kabylie, but only the name of the legendary leader of the FLN during the independence war Hocine Aït Ahmed was chosen to be the name of the new stadium of JS Kabylie.

Inauguration and first goal
The inauguration of the stadium took place on June 18, 2023. The first test match opposed the JS Kabylie U21 team against the US Biskra U21 team, in U21's championship. Lahlou Akhrib of JS Kabylie scored the historic first goal, in this stadium, in a 3–1 victory for the Canaries.