Incredible £1.36 BILLION 'lotus' stadium that was to be bigger than Wembley was left abandoned for years

A stadium with a staggering cost of £1.36 billion which was set to be bigger than Wembley and the Nou Camp will finally be finished after winding up in limbo.

The new Wembley Stadium, opened in 2007, is the sixth-largest football arena in the world - with the Nou Camp second on the list and poised to increase to 105,000 when renovation work is completed.

But back in 2020, work began on a stadium with a capacity of 100,000 which would have overtaken both aforementioned football grounds as the world's biggest.

Five years later and the facility, in set to be the new home for China's most successful football team, is still not up and running after a whirlwind turn of events.

Guangzhou FC won eight titles in nine seasons and also won the AFC Champions League on two occasions.

Their enormous success came under the name Guangzhou Evergrande after they were bought by a real estate group who splashed out on new signings and infrastructure in the height of the Chinese Super League's most prominent period.

Marcello Lippi, Fabio Cannavaro and Luiz Felipe Scolari all took charge of Guangzhou, whose past players include Paulinho, Robinho, Alberto Gilardino, Jackson Martinez, Asamoah Gyan, Demba Ba and Dario Conca.

They played home games at three different grounds but in April 2020, unveiled plans for the all-new Evergrande Stadium - adopting a stunning lotus flower design.

The bold lotus flower design did not materialise. Image: AFP

What happened to the football stadium set to be the largest in the world?

Initial proposals from China's largest property developers had the project's cost as more than one billion and the intention was for it to be ready by December 2022, according to talkSPORT.

But things proved to be anything but smooth sailing. At one point it was claimed that the Evergrande Group owed a whopping £220 billion and yet were still pressing forward with the project until the Chinese government got involved and seized the stadium from them.

The company attempted to sell the stadium but that never happened and the club embarked on almost unprecedented downwards spiral, including bankruptcy and relegation.

They ended up playing at a ground which could only house 18,000 fans and eventually dissolved after not paying the staggering debts which piled up.

For nearly two years, the stadium was left half-complete - with cranes and scaffolding still there.

The stadium was left abandoned and untouched for two years. Image: Getty

Although the club's application to return to professional football was rejected, there has been movement on the stadium front.

The Guangzhou City Construction Investment Group, owned by the state, took on the project and construction restarted in 2024.

The cost has reduced significantly to around £253 million, with the capacity coming in at 73,000 and the lotus flower being scrapped.