Football stadium bigger than Wembley remains a 'ghost ground' and the full story is a shame

A football stadium bigger than Wembley Stadium remains a 'ghost ground' after the project was shelved due to lack of funding.

Chinese Super League side Guangzhou Evergrande were one of several high-profile clubs to grab the headlines when it splashed the cash on Brazillian megastars Robinho and Paulinho back in 2015.

There was a football boom in China with teams handing out big money contracts to veteran stars in the hope that the domestic game would one day be as lucrative as the Premier League.

Evergrande were the team to beat, winning seven consecutive titles between 2011 and 2017 under a string of high-profile managers including Fabio Cannavaro and Luiz Felipe Scolari.

They had thrown everything at it, with big plans to build a 100,000 seater ground to rival the best in the world. A ground that remains unfinished to this day, as per the Daily Star.

The team was renamed in 2021 to Guangzhou FC due to a request for all names associated with companies that owned the club to be removed.

Later that year, the Chinese financial crisis ensued and had a devastating impact on the clubs' future and the completion of their state-of-the-art stadium.

With several key players soon departing the club were relegated in 2022 - ending 12 consecutive seasons in the top flight.

In the middle of that same year, the stadium project was shelved and the ground left abandoned. It remains in that state today and is set to be auctioned off.

Any hopes of it being finished are long gone with it standing as a reminder that no matter how much money you throw into a football club it doesn't always bring success.

The Chinese Super League has now dropped significantly in status with the Chinese Football Association choosing to focus on the development of homegrown talent.