The name “Milan” is certainly familiar for football fans and Betway sports betting users alike. There are two major football teams based in the Italian city of Milano: AC Milan and Inter, both of them performing great in the Italian domestic championship, Serie A – AC Milan is currently third, and Inter Milan is leading in the tournament.
The two teams currently share the same stadium – San Siro or, as it is officially known, the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. It was named after the legendary forward who scored 240 goals for Inter between 1927 and 1940. The stadium is becoming dated, though, so the time has come for the two teams to move into a new one. Which, according to the plans revealed today, will be a futuristic work of architecture.
(Photo: acmilan.com)
Out with the old
The original San Siro stadium was built in 1925 on the horse racing track owned by the same person who owned AC Milan, Italian entrepreneur Piero Pirelli. Initially, it was designed as a purely football stadium with no athletic tracks. The inaugural match was played by AC Milan and Inter in September 1926 when 35,000 people saw AC Milan get thrashed by its nemesis 6-3.
The stadium was expanded several times over the years, increasing its capacity from 35,000 to today’s 80,000. The last major renovation to the stadium was completed in 1990 for the FIFA World Cup matches played in the venue.
In with the new
The new stadium that will be called “The Cathedral” is set to have a capacity of 60,000 seats. It has been designed by the architectural design company Populous that is responsible for venues like the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Olympic Stadium in London, built for the 2012 Summer Olympics hosted by the United Kingdom.
The architects used two of Milano’s iconic buildings as an inspiration for their design: the Duomo di Milano or Milan Cathedral that was built between 1386 and 1965, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, Italy’s oldest shopping gallery that’s been open since 1877.
The new stadium will have a rectangular shape with fins directing sunlight into the “galleria” surrounding the pitch, and the seating will be “the most intimate in Europe” with fans seated as close to the turf as possible. “The new San Siro will be the most beautiful stadium in the world for its strong identity and recognisability,” AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni told the press. “An attractive arena, accessible and sustainable for the city of Milan that will facilitate the growth of the clubs and their global competitiveness.”
