Football Ground Map
Football Ground Map
The biggest and the best often surround themselves with the most alluring stories. Controversy in the construction of big buildings, a games arena, and a World Cup football ground are all part of the same cycle. In not so past the tiny state of Qatar hosted the FIFA World Cup in an all-new football ground that has never been seen before. Infrastructural development for major events conflicts with safety and other factors, and such cases lead to controversies. Today, we see some of the most controversial football stadiums that resulted from such construction.
This tiny little nation was spawning a huge infrastructure development resulting in building complete stadiums from scratch with billions of dollars' worth of investment. In 2017, modified shipping containers became the construction equipment, for their new Ras Abu Aboud football stadium. It was the work of architect Fenwick for one of the stadiums in Doha. The primary attraction of this architecture was that the entire stadium could be dismantled and shifted to a new location. Thus, modular designs and repurposed steel shipping containers were arranged in a curved square shape. It resulted in a stadium with a seating capacity of 40,000 people. Each design element was modular, from seats to bathrooms.
Yet, malpractices, corruption, and ignorance of safety guidelines became part of the news now and then. These controversies resulted in worldwide media coverage in negative attention. The issues were several folds spanning from idea to execution.
All the stuff for the World Cup needs to meet the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) rules. GSAS checks if buildings and structures are environmentally friendly in the Middle East and North Africa. Architects were suggesting to use of shipping containers for various cool projects. James Whitaker had this idea of using cargo containers for a house in the California desert, and in New York, LOT-EK made a family home by slicing and stacking shipping containers. Other concerns were using the same stuff for recreational activities.
Media noted that people are also using these containers for swimming pools, hot tubs, a movable farm, and even a pop-up cinema. The Ras Abu Aboud Stadium is by the waterfront in downtown West Bay with views of the Corniche, a 7-kilometre-long promenade in Doha. Jean Nouvel is almost done with the National Museum of Qatar at the southern tip of the Corniche. Such practices resulted in controversies of a worldwide scale, not to mention the investment going upwards of 100s of billions of dollars.
New football grounds today offer more entertainment. Today, these stadiums offer online betting for fans before you book a ticket. You can look for the best online casino bonus UK offers for the game you want to see. They pay huge sums of money for sponsors. Yet, not just the incredible 200 billion dollar investment could hide the signs of underpay, abuse, and unethical practices for migrant workers. The city of Doha where 64 games would take place, was playing a game of fraud and corruption. Many of the workers belong to countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, and it was reported that they were forced to live under inhuman conditions, and poor working returns, and the overall nature of the employment to build these stadiums was controversial.
Engineers found themselves in manual labour jobs and they were forced to live on site under various rules. Many Qatari companies executed the Kafala system. Many independent investigations from Amnesty International found that around 15,000 workers had perished during this so-called FIFA stadium construction.
For a whopping 85 years, the Pinstripe Crew has made Yankee Stadium their turf. During this time, tons of legendary players have rocked the field, bringing home 26 World Series titles. That's like winning a championship every three and a quarter seasons (throwing in the '94 season barely tweaks that number). However, things have been pushed into a state of panic with controversies arising from construction to ethics. Across the site near the football stadium, a 1.3 billion-dollar magnanimous ground was rising from scratch. In the year of 2009, this would be one of the biggest in the states.
The seats would be larger for accommodating bigger Americans. Just the parking for this would span 3600 spaces and 320 million dollars. This was added to a Metro-North station for rail systems, bringing the cost to another 91 million. But, where the whole debacle began was when the press started asking questions about this big construction. From traditionalist who don't want to lose their 85-year-old memory, to a big iceberg chunk of other issues that were hidden in plain sight.
For example, this ten-acre beauty in the South Bronx was the first-ever pro sports spot to have three-tier seating and got the cool title of being the first "stadium." The $2.5 million used to build it back then is now only worth $31.2 million. That's roughly what they're shelling out to A-Rod this season. The community input was ignored in all the planning, and the transfer of this 22-acre parkland was approved by the legislation within a week without proper community approval. The replacement alone would cost the residents 150 million and further on top of it, the new football stadium would be the property of the City of New York. This resulted in complex issues regarding revenue generation and tax pay. Using public money to build such structures does not sit well with the fans.
A bunch of government folks were convinced that some shady stuff went down in the planning phase. Dennis Kucinich, this Ohio Democrat in the House who was leading the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, insisted that they fudged the property value on purpose to snag special tax breaks. He even said the architects digging into the new stadium plans found some solid proof of fraud. It was figured that when everything was settled, the stadium ended up costing nearly $2 billion to build, and about half of that came from the taxpayers' pockets.
Football is a great game, and will always tend to be. However, some of the fan-based or over-ambitious projects to extract money from football fans or make a mark in the world, lead to controversial construction, abuse of power and dignity, and abuse of humanity. The two examples above from two parts of the world show that misrepresentation can lead to unethical conditions and ignoring even the most basic rules of the game.
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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My daughter's first ever football match - Orlando City v Atlanta United, August 2019. Written for Izzy to read when she gets old enough. Vamos Orlando
