Chinese Super League (CSL) club Guangzhou Evergrande have begun the construction work on the world's largest soccer stadium.
The new venue will have a seating capacity of 100,000 seats, 16 VVIP private areas, 152 VIP private areas, a FIFA area and is slated to be opened by the end of 2022. In terms of the seating capacity, it will still be behind Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in DPR Korea which also has an athletics track, the Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium, Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad which was recently opened during American president Donald Trump's visit to India earlier this year. But in terms of soccer stadiums, it would surpass the 99,354 capacity of Barcelona's Camp Nou.
Guangzhou Evergrande is one of the most successful football clubs in the continent having won as many as eight Chinese Super League titles along with two Asian Champions League.
The stadium is in the shape of a lotus and it is the work of from the Shanghai-based American designer Hasan Syed. The shape originates from Guangzhou's status as the Flower City.
The stadium has an estimated worth of $1.7 billion (12 billion yuan), as reported by CNN. Work had begun last Thursday with the aim to make it "a world-class new landmark comparable to the Sydney Opera House and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and an important symbol of Chinese football going to the world," according to the president of real estate conglomerate Evergrande, Xia Haijun.
