Borussia Dortmund are set to become the first club in the history of the German Bundesliga to reach the 40 million visitor mark! A total of 39,936,317 spectators have attended the previous 834 league matches at the Strobelallee.

The 54,000 fans who attended the relegation play-off against Fortuna Köln on 19 May 1986 are not included, meaning the 63,683rd person to pass through the stadium turnstiles on Friday will be the 40 millionth visitor. The threshold is certain to be reached, as the match is sold-out apart from 1,500 tickets that were returned by Hertha at short notice and will be sold at the box office for away fans in front of the North Stand from 16:00 CET on Friday.

A total of at least one million fans have attended the club's home games each season since 1997/98, which was also the last time that BVB failed to top the fan table. For the 18th consecutive season and the 23rd in total, Borussia Dortmund have occupied number one spot in this respect.

The Black and Yellows' lowest total attendance came in the 1971/72 season, when 308,000 fans took their places in the Rote Erde Stadium (18,118 on average), while the record attendance came last season with 1,380,023 fans entering Signal Iduna Park (81,178 on average).

In addition, Borussia Dortmund boast the highest average attendance (47,885) in the history of the Bundesliga, although a handful of other clubs including Hamburger SV (54 seasons), Werder Bremen (53) and Bayern Munich (52) have played more home games than BVB, who are currently in their 50th top-flight campaign.
Boris Rupert