To base, or partly base your opinion on "talk" that "sounds good" is at best naive. How much talk - from all parties in this disaster - have we heard? Where are we now as a result of talk? Up until now we have heard nothing more than talk. I do believe that Rugby JS wants to get things done. How big a stadium he actually needs for the Rugby Club alone is a question. Having CCFC will mean a bigger stadium, but more problems in getting things done. I am still waiting to see the costings and proposed revenues - and how the revenues are shared between the Rugby club, their investors, SISU's investors and the club.
JS at CRFC has stated in
The chap from CRFC said that if they lowered the pitch they could build bigger stands. Not sure how that works to be honest as unless you're overhanging the pitch how can you get any closer?
Its now a fact that it has to happen to get a decent capacity and will cost the GDP of a small country to do.
Barcelona fc did it!....
History
First opening in 1957 with a friendly match between FC Barcelona and
Legia Warsaw the stadium originally consisted of just two stands which were capable of seating around 60,000 supporters. Replacing the club’s former home, Camp de Les Corts, which had no room for further expansion, the stadium was originally called “Estadi del FC Barcelona”.
Costing 288 million pesetas which was more than three times larger than the initial budget, it wasn’t until Spain hosted the
1982 World Cup that the Nou Camp was expanded to a capacity of 80,000. Barcelona’s stadium hosted its first European Cup final in May 1972 between
Rangers and
Dynamo Moscow in the Cup Winners Cup, and has gone on to host several major finals since.
Perhaps most famous of all was the Champions League Final of the 1998/1999 season which saw
Manchester United comeback to defeat
Bayern Munch 2-1 after scoring two goals in injury time despite being outplayed over 90 minutes. Prior to this the Nou Camp hosted the 1989 final between
AC Milan and
FC Steaua București which was a much more one sided affair with the Italians dominating their opponents in a 4 nil victory.
The removal of the seats in the early 1990s initially reduced the capacity below 100,000
but renovation work which included the lowering of the pitch resulted in the reclamation of some seats. This ensured that Barca’s stadium would remain the largest in Europe ahead of Real Madrid’s rival Santiago Bernabéu and Espanyol’s Cornellà-el Prat.
In 2007 as part of the ground’s 50th anniversary the club commissioned prominent British architect Norman Foster to remodel the stadium but plans were shelved due to the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. The project is now resurrected with the €600 million work set to begin in 2017 and be completed over a four year period by 2011.