Italy has a football-savvy culture, so it is no surprise that the country's football clubs have built many stadiums. A lot of these are quite old and need to be replaced, though. Here are some interesting Italian stadium concepts that were never realised.
Italian Stadium Concepts That Were Not Realised
AS Roma
Approved by the city of Rome in 2017, the proposed Stadio della Roma would have meant AS Roma receive their own venue, separate from rivals Lazio. After several delays, issues with planning and corruption saw the plans for the 55,000 capacity arena ultimately get scrapped.
Fiorentina
Constructed in 1931, the Stadio Artemio Franchi, Fiorentina's current stadium, was ruled to be a historic sight and therefore cannot be demolished.
This prevents the club's plans of major redevelopement, as only certain aspects of the venue are allowed to be altered. If Fiorentina do want to build a brand new stadium, they will have to do so elsewhere.
FC Empoli
With Empoli's current Stadio Carlo Castellani, the club play in a very basic and somewhat outdated football venue. In 2015, plans for a 20,000-seater were brought forward, but never put into action. Construction was supposed to go ahead in 2017 or 2018.
ACN Siena 1904
Siena proposed a beautiful new stadium, which was supposed to blend in with the gorgeous Tuscany scenery. In fact, the pitch would be placed below the ground level, embedding the stadium into the landscape.
The new stadium would have allowed a capacity of 20,000 fans, however these plans were revealed back in 2004. Almost 20 years later, there is little to no information on the current status of the project. This revolutionary idea certainly had the potential to become something amazing.
Calcio Catania
Back when Calcio Catania enjoyed decent results in Serie A, their president dreamed of constructing a new 30,000-seater stadium. However, currently playing in Serie C, the club stands little chance of securing the funds necessary to build this massive piece of architecture.
An investment of at least 80-100 million Euros would have been necessary at the time.
Perhaps these planned projects will one day be resumed and finally put into action. However, most of them will probably never see the light of day.
What do you think of these proposed stadium designs? Are there any you would like to see in real life? Comment below.