With the end of the “lock-down” due to the coronavirus pandemic, Guangzhou Evergrande has finally tackled its ambitious stadium project. The Chinese football club started building its new arena. The capacity should be 100,000 spectators, which would make the football stadium the largest in the world. FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou currently holds the record with 99,354 seats.
04/20/2020 23.00
Online since yesterday, 11.00 pm
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The extravagant outer shell will have the shape of a lotus flower, as Guangzhou wants to live up to its reputation as a city of flowers. Work on it started last week and is expected to be completed by the end of 2022. The goal is for the arena to gain an international architectural status, such as the Opera House in Sydney or the Burdsch Chalifa in Dubai.
16 super-VIP boxes and 152 VIP boxes are planned in the ultra-modern interior. It goes without saying that this has a corresponding price. The construction costs amount to twelve billion yuan (approx. 1.6 billion euros). For a long time, however, the “Lotus Flower” stadium will probably not be the largest pure football arena in the world. From the 2023/24 season, FC Barcelona would like to have increased their capacity in the renovated Camp Nou to 105,000 spectators.
Construction offensive in China
Guangzhou Evergrande has been playing in the 60,000-seat Tianhe Stadium since 2011. The coach of the eight-time Chinese champion and two-time winner of the Asian Champions League is the Italian world champion from 2006, Fabio Cannavaro. On average, the games are “only” attended by 46,000 fans, but Evergrande is pursuing a larger plan with the stadium construction. The long-term goal is for China to want to host the World Cup at some point.
For this you need a certain infrastructure regarding the venues. Numerous Chinese Super League (CSL) clubs are therefore building or renovating a number of stadiums. The real estate company Evergrande also announced last week that it plans to build three to five additional stadiums for 80,000 to 100,000 spectators in other parts of the country. It is not yet clear where exactly these will be built.
China is scheduled to host the 2021 Club World Cup and the 2023 Asian Cup. The Club World Cup should take place in the summer of 2021, but due to the relocation of the European Championship and Copa America it is still unclear when the tournament will be played.
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