Small stadiums for the WC--FIFA needs to lay down the law

Yes, for WCs it is 68mx105m as I said (at least that's how it's handled in Germany). And yes of course FIFA can make any kind of exception if they want to....it's "their" tournament. :-/

Btw, regulation for all kind of soccer pitches is a width of 45m-90m and length of 90m-120m.

 

To be pedantic it was the England - Croatia (originally in Coimbra) and the France - Switzerland (originally in Lisbon) that got switched. I only know because I had tickets for the Match in Coimbra and thought i'd got 2 England games when they did the draw (I got the France game), only to find out an hour later that they had switched it. Good news for 45000 England fans, a bit of a bummer for me.

 

It governs World Cup qualifying as well as the World Cup. In a strange reversal, you guys are converting to meters. Originally the Laws, written by the English, were in yards and still are (with conversion to meters provided now also). Minimum field size (the actual playing field, not including "run off") is 70 x 110 yards.

And smithfan (who provided some amazing photos of this year's venues) the US posters are talking about possible World Cups in the future- 2018 or 2022.

 

I am pretty sure that for the 2006 World Cup it is exactly 68mx105m.

Absolutely right. It is just that....ehhhh.....you know......LONG LIVE THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!!!

 

Well in that case, not even the first row will be able to see anything...I mean you also have to have some sort of usability, I wouldn't want to be in the last row of a stadium with a capacity of 100.000. A good way to increase numbers without making the stadium too big would be to allow stands. That way we could probably fit an average of 10.000 people more in the WC arenas, plus it would be a great asset to the overall atmosphere and those tickets could be cheaper.

 

They made an exception because they were desperate to have games in NY (well, ok, NJ ). They did not make a general exception.

 

One yard too narrow for international play, around six for WC finals play. I very much doubt that would be accepted for a repeat US bid.

 

read the thread closer. The rule (NOW) is 70 yards minimum for World Cup and Qualifying.

However I think in 94 the rule was 72 yards. I'm not going to go look for the answer.

 

It was 75 yards (68m) in '94, and I've sen nothing to indicate it's changed since. 70 yards (64m) is for internationals in general including WC qualifiers.

 

OK, I looked for the answer.

The Laws of the Game specify for "International Competitions" a minimum field size of 64 meters (70 yards).

I believe the 75 yard figure comes from the publication "TECHNICAL RECOMMENDATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OR MODERNISATION OF FOOTBALL STADIA"
They recommend a field size of 68 meters (75 yards).

Those are recommendations, not the actual law...but it is confusing:

It also states ** "for all matches in the final competition of the FIFA World Cup and the final competitions of confederation championships throughout the world, only the dimensions of 105 x 68 m are acceptable"

Most of the fields in 94 were 75 yards, except Giants Stadium.

 

Anyway, back to the real issue at hand of overall stadium size. My take is as follows:

1) The real problem is not overall stadium size....it doesn't make economic sense to build too many stadia much larger than 40,000, since the clubs that use them before and after a World Cup generally don't need stadia much bigger than that.

2) The second problem is that matches are assigned to cities long before the draw is made, which often results in popular matches being assigned to small stadia and less popular matches being assigned to large stadia, purely by random chance.

3) The third problem is that FIFA gives too many tickets away to sponsors and politicians, thereby reducing the number of tickets available to travelling supporters. The fact that at this years WC, the two teams involved in any given match only get a combined 16% of the available tickets (8% each) is an absolute travesty.

The obvious solution is to wait until after the draw to assign matches to stadia. Yes, it would mean that people would have to wait longer to make travel plans, but in the day and age of the internet where you can make plane and hotel reservations in ten minutes, that is a relatively minor consideration.

 

As I said, at least for WC2006 it is 68mx105m. Not only mentioned in the technical recommendation-pdf, which is out there since several years, but also on several news-sites and especially stadionwelt.de, which distribute FIFA press notes.

 

Australia Does!

 

Nah ya don't. Only 2 - Olympic Stadium and the MCG.

Do have three within shouting distance of 60,000 though (Football Park in Adelaide, the Docklands and Lang Park).

 

You forgot about Sydney Football stadium.

Lang Park is around 60k, the dome and sa football park r nearly 60 k anyway.

so my reckoning 6 stadium, 60k or plus.

Anyway when Australia gets the world cup, the stadium that need to be upgraded, will be.

Although i don't know how many fans would travel to the most remote contintent on earth.

The World cup commitee should perhaps allocated teams to stadium acording to their pulling power.

 

Luxemburg?

sure they should meet the requirements

 

We have enough grounds now that meet capacity requirements to host a World Cup but some of them will need upgrading in facilities. There are two 80,000+ grounds to choose from for a final. The MCG has a bigger capacity than the Olympic Stadium but it is a round ground which is a disadvantage. We have 3 others over 50,000, and another 4 over 40,000. Unfortunately only 4 of those 9 grounds can be set up in a rectangular configuration for football. All the others are cricket / Australian football grounds exclusilvely. However by the time Australia has a realistic chance of hosting (not before 2022 IMHO) a lot of these stadiums will be old and need upgrading to more modern facilities.

 

Australia really doesn't have much when you consider the one stadium per city rule.

 

IMHO just a soft rule. Or can anyone imagine a future WC in England with Ashburton not being used?

 

You're allowed one city with two stadiums. That still leaves Australia in the ********.

 

It just means that the stadiums in Canberra, Newcastle and Townsville would need some upgrading.

 

I have the impression that South Africa thinks that hosting major sporting events will solve all their problems.

 

Kaiserslautern's was built by the club, but they sold it to the city and state two years ago because of financial problems of the legal kind.