Germany’s FIFA World Cup stadiums set new standards
|
The second FIFA World Cup to take place in Germany will be a national experience. In contrast to the first one 32 years ago, the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ will be played in both in east and west Germany. That Leipzig and Berlin were included in the circle containing the 12 FIFA World Cup venue cities was the only condition made by Egidius Braun, the then President of the Deutschen Fußball Bund (DFB – German Football Association) for the FIFA World Cup city selection process. Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and Munich are all included which means Germany’s four biggest German cities are all represented. Those wanting to see FIFA World Cup matches at a number of venues, can look forward to a “Tour d'Allemagne” through the country’s various regions. Frankfurt am Main lies at the heart of a map of Germany. Hanover and Stuttgart, both centres of other important urban areas in the north and south respectively, are also represented. Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund are flying the flag of the Ruhrregion. FIFA World Cup venues with a long football tradition are Nuremberg at the heart of Franconia in the south-east, Kaiserslautern, which is the smallest FIFA World Cup city as it only numbers a population of 100,000, in the Palatinate and Leipzig in Saxony. Already called the “Hero’s City”, Leipzig has a great sporting tradition even though momentarily the city is without a team in either the first and second Bundesliga. About two dozen cities showed interest and 15 were taken into final consideration. Düsseldorf, a part of the 1974 World Cup, Bremen and Mönchengladbach were left empty handed. Leverkusen withdrew its bid shortly before the naming of the FIFA World Cup venues as crowd capacity of the arena belonging to the Bundesliga club Bayer 04 is insufficient. Building new stadiums and modernising existing ones has given rise to costs totalling 1,5 billion Euro. Nine of the twelve stadiums are purely football grounds. A running track and jumping facilities are only to be found in Stuttgart, Nürnberg and Berlin in front of the terraces, which will be all seating at the 2006 FIFA World Cup™. Of the nine arena in 1974 only Dortmund’s Westfahlenstadion was a “specialist” football stadium.. “We will possess the world’s most modern stadiums in 2006,” said Franz Beckenbauer, the President of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ Organising Committee, after a totally new era in the building of German sports arena has been completed. The new Munich stadium is being hailed as a milestone of modern sports arena architecture. From the outside, it appears to be a fabulous object with cascading steps known as “Heaven’s Ladders”. Inside, its standard of comfort was unknown in the Olympic Stadium. Built for the 1936 Olympic Games, Berlin’s Olympic Stadium is even more impressive than ever after its complete redevelopment. As far as its charisma is concerned it measures up to that of the “Stade de France” in St. Denis near Paris, which was built for the 1998 World Cup for 500 million Euro. An overview of the FIFA World Cup stadiums: |
|
|
|