Football Ground Map
Football Ground Map
The benefits of modern-day football intertwined with commercial and financial interests are endless. The modern stadiums are built to cater for additional activities besides football, like holding musical concerts, other sports like rugby and NFL games, provide accommodation through the building of hotels, leisure outlets, shopping centers for the selling of merchandise, and have much bigger seating capacity to allow respective football clubs to compete at the highest level of football competitions.
New and modern football stadiums also need to have the latest technology installed to give the best and immediate service to the supporters as well as be eco-friendly as much as possible. Most prerequisites imposed or requested by local authorities prior to the approval of projects stressed the importance of public safety and total respect to the environment.
The mode of how to finance new stadiums and the development of the surrounding area differ from country to country and club to club. Well-financed clubs like Juventus, Barcelona, and Real Madrid have financed the development and construction of most of their stadiums. The best odds sites available online place Juventus as one of the Serie A favorites, since the team has a top football stadium; a money-making machine that is making the club millions in the process.
Inter Milan and Milan AC have joined forces to in tandem build their new stadium and move out of their current stadium the San Siro. AC Roma, another Italian football club, is looking to have a new stadium and is in constant discussion with local authorities on how to find the way forward aimed at initiating the construction of the new stadium at the earliest.
Juventus football club stadium is better known as the Allianz Stadium was built and inaugurated in July 2017. This highly technological stadium is situated in Turin the hometown of Juventus. It was built on the site of the former ground, the Stadio Delle Alpi (the Delle Alpi was built for the Italia '90 World Cup competition held in Italy) and is the first club-owned football stadium in Italy.
The Agnelli family, better known for their investment in the car industry of the like of FIAT and Jeep plus business stakes in other sectors, are the owners of the club and it was their private initiative to give Juventus football club the Allianz Stadium.
The site where the stadium was built also houses a hotel, training facilities, a shopping center, and JD Medical to cater to the health and safety of the players.
Juventus' innovative idea to have their own new stadium led other Italian teams to commence their own projects to have a new stadium. In fact, the two teams from Milan, Inter Milan, and Milan AC have commissioned two different designs for a new shared stadium to replace the San Siro. The designs are currently being vetted and evaluated by local authorities and the respective supporter groups.
The first design is known as the Cathedral and resonates with the famous Duomo Cathedral and the Galleria in Milan. The other proposal is called the Rings of Milano and incorporates two giant rings intertwined symbolizing the two clubs from Milan. Both designs have a capacity of 60,000.
Another Italian club, AC Roma, has already announced that they intend to leave their current home ground Stadio Olympico where they have been sharing with their neighbors Lazio SS since 1953. The new stadium which will be named "Stadio Della Roma" takes its inspiration from the famous Colosseum and will seat just over 52,000 spectators. The surrounding area of the new stadium will have multiple facilities such as shops, restaurants, cafes, entertainment outlets, and office space.
In England, Tottenham Hotspur has become the symbol and envy of most clubs in the United Kingdom when in 2019 the team inaugurated the spaceship-shaped mega stadium. With its retractable pitch, a micro-brewery, and the longest bar, it enables the premises to host other activities like NFL games, boxing matches, and musical concerts in addition to the traditional football matches.
Speaking of English stadiums, one cannot but mention Wembley stadium. The original stadium was demolished between 2002 and 2003 and was rebuilt and inaugurated in 2007. Wembley Stadium is owned by the English Football Association and hosts major football events including the home matches of the English national team. With its 90,000 seats capacity, Wembley stadium is the largest stadium in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe.
Barcelona's home ground, branded as Camp Nou is the biggest stadium in Europe and the second-largest in the world. Its capacity is 99,000 spectators. The renovation earmarked for Camp Nou will increase the capacity to 105,000 by the year 2023. The Barcelona project is known as "Espai Barca" is an ambitious project which includes a basketball arena having 12,000 seat capacity as well as a small football ground seating 6,000. The smaller ground will be named after the Dutch legendary footballer Johan Cruyff who used to play his football with Barcelona. The "Espai Barca" project is expected to cost €600 million.
Obviously, not to be outshined by their sporting rivals Barcelona, the other Spanish football club hailing from Madrid, Real Madrid, has initiated their own project to upgrade the Santiago Bernabeu. The refurbishment project will cost approximately €400 million.
The renovation will increase the stadium's site by 66,000 square meters and maintain more or less the same seating capacity. The new stadium will include a retractable roof and a 360-degree video screen. The surrounding area will be developed and benefit from a number of shops, restaurants, and leisure outlets.
Football clubs and their respective owners are constantly working with professional entities like the local authorities, engineers, architects, financiers and construction companies to create new stadiums and improve current stadiums. Also striving to develop surrounding areas to make it more commercially viable to investors and football clubs and make it easier for the visiting public to enjoy their stay. These extensive and vast projects also render substantial revenue which most of it goes into the coffers of the football clubs to cover the huge expenses. Paying wages and maintaining the complex in general. These new projects can be described as the financial life-line of most football clubs.
All good things have to come to an end, and the same unfortunately has to be said for football stadiums too. This article looks at the grounds which are soon to host their last match, the stadiums whose days are numbered and where fans will be watching their football from next.
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