After Sertab Erener’s 2003 victory with “Everyway That I Can” the contest came to Istanbul, the only city in the world connects two continents, in 2004.
Discussions came under with which venue to host Eurovision 2004 and in the end it was decided to organize the contest in Abdi İpekci Arena.
Today the president of Turkish Basketball Feseration Hidayet Türkoğlu stated that the arena will be destroyed. Full announcement;
“Evacuation and destruction plans for the arena have been started. This complex served the Basketball a lot. (It hosted Eurobasket 2001, World Basketball Champions 2010 for men and for women in 2014 also the Eurobasket 2017. Hope the new Basketball development center whic is going to be built in its place will bring even more goodness for Basketball ”