Geelong Football Club VFL/AFL (1941–present) VFL (2000–present) AFLW (2019–present) Melbourne Renegades (BBL) (2018–present) Australia national cricket team (2017) Melbourne Victory (A-League) (2013–2019) Western United (A-League) (2019–2021) Kardinia Park (also known as GMHBA Stadium due to naming rights) is a sporting and entertainment venue located within Kardinia Park, South Geelong, in the Australian state of Victoria.

[citation needed] Kardinia Park is regarded as a proverbial graveyard for teams playing against Geelong, which has an especially good record at the ground.

[21] In August 2019, it was announced that new A-League club Western United would play the majority of home matches at Kardinia Park for the upcoming 2019/20 season and for a further two or three years.

[22] The club had planned to play most home matches at Kardinia Park until moving into their proposed new stadium in Tarneit in Melbourne's West.

[29] European Champions League finalists Atlético Madrid played Melbourne Victory in a friendly match at the stadium on 31 July 2016.

[33] On 4 March 2022, American band Foo Fighters performed at the venue marking the first stadium show in the country after the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.

It included a new western entry and membership area, as well as the five-level wing-side grandstand with a capacity of 6,098 spectators on the eastern side of the stadium.

In September 2007, Kardinia Park received a further total of A$25 million towards the second stage of redevelopment in rebuilding the Ross Drew Stand on the south western side of the ground.

[citation needed] In May 2009 it was revealed that the stadium owners the City of Greater Geelong had approached a number of Melbourne-based AFL clubs discussing the financial advantages of playing home games at the ground.

The new Grandstand also included improved spectator amenities, a purpose-built training facility for community sports and education groups, a "past players" function room, and four broadcast-compliant floodlit towers, allowing the stadium to host night events.

[40] Significant miscalculations were made with respect to the budget required for the stage 3 redevelopment and consequently several aspects of the original plans were scaled back by the Geelong Football Club in November 2011, including the removal of the proposed supporters lounge and decreasing capacity by 1,000 seats.

[42] The new Players Stand was officially opened on 1 June 2013, prior to Geelong's first proper home match of the 2013 AFL season against Gold Coast.

[43] The fourth stage of redevelopment saw the Brownlow and the Jennings Stands demolished at the end of the 2015 AFL season to make way for a new state of the art grandstand.

[47] Prior to this the venue had been owned and operated by the City of Greater Geelong, which now maintains and manages the broader Kardinia Park precinct, though not the actual stadium itself.

This stage of redevelopment was the final part of the more than decade-long process to increase the capacity of Kardinia Park to 40,000 and resulted in the Ford Stand and Gary Ablett Terrace being removed to make way for a new grandstand to ring around the rest of the remaining open-air section of the stadium.

[59][60] It was formally unveiled by the government and other parties at a press conference on 12 March 2024, a few days prior to the round 1 match between Geelong and St Kilda.

The brand benefits for Geelong were enormous, with packed restaurants on Pako and Little Malop Street and hotels and Airbnbs booked out across the region.

It wasn’t just travellers from Melbourne, as the City was buzzing with Foo Fighters fans from across Victoria and Australia, which was a sign that Geelong was going through a real renaissance.

[63] The five stage redevelopment of the stadium, completed over two decades at a cost of $340 million, has given rise to the ground being given the nickname Pork Barrel Park, [64] [65] a reference to the practice of politicians spending money on local projects to win favour with voters.