Saratoga, California | In a drama played out daily at planning and zoning hearings throughout the United States, parents’ desires for soccer space in this bedroom community of redwood trees and sycamores have created tension with other residents’ wishes for peace and quiet. The San Jose Mercury News reports on the dispute over the future of [...]
Jerusalem | In a reversal of the American paradigm, in which baseball and gridiron-football stadia are grudgingly loaned for soccer, U.S.-based opportunists seek soccer stadia in Israel for launching a professional baseball league. New York Times columnist Murray Chass writes that speculators seek small stadia, with between 3,000 and 5,000 seats, rather than larger venues in [...]
London | Having nipped rivals Tottenham Hotspur for a final Champions League spot on 7 May—on the same day they were honoring their Highbury ground of 93 years—Arsenal Football Club had reason to feel elation and melancholy. We try to capture both in our interactive Flash tribute.
Gaza City, Palestinian Authority | Some of the most contested, densely populated land on earth offers little space for football on grass. Even less so now that a massive crater remains near the center of the Palestine national stadium in Gaza City, the result of an Israel Defense Forces bomb attack on Apr 1.
Dortmund, Germany | Supporters lent a raucous surrounding to today’s friendly between Germany and the United States. We did not see denizens of the Signal Iduna Park wearing any of the free 11,000 T-shirts reading “Ihr für uns und wir für euch” (“You’re for us and we’re for you”) meant to soften feared hostility toward Germany’s manager. At least the U.S. television commentators were not wearing them.
Turin, Italy | The torch of the 20th Winter Olympiad began its last-day descent from Superga Basilica, acknowledging a tragic component of city history before being transported to the rechristined Stadio Comunale north of the Torrente Sangone. On 4 May 1949 a plane carrying 18 members of “Il Grande Torino,” four-time winners of the Scudetto, crashed [...]
Berlin | The Brandenburg Gate becomes the venue for a pre–World Cup “gala” after FIFA axed earlier plans for a star-studded spectacular. Having seen the production values for the Dec 9 draw in Leipzig (see Dec 6), the decision is probably for the best. But the re-think represents the type of PR misstep that, writ large, offers commentators [...]
Sacramento, California, and Graz, Austria | To look on the bright side, the name of the home ground of SK Sturm Graz may soon be shortened considerably. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked Graz officials to remove his name from the stadium by the end of this year given local protests of Schwarzenegger’s refusal of clemency [...]
Scarsdale, New York | A Westchester County supplement of the New York Times reports on a growing reality as playing space for soccer becomes scarce: communities having to police their fields to restrict access to “outsiders.” The case discussed by Marek Fuchs in his column (“ ’Go Out and Play’ Has Gotten Complicated,” Nov 20) involves the [...]
Washington | D.C. Council member and former mayor Marion Barry has reversed position on a proposed new stadium for D.C. United to be located in Poplar Point, in the district Barry represents in Anacostia. Realizing that the stadium could represent a $1 billion investment windfall for the primarily low-income area and provide much-needed low-wage housing, Barry [...]
Belfast, Northern Ireland | A survey concludes that Northern Ireland supporters prefer a national sports stadium in central Belfast rather than at the proposed Maze prison site outside town. An alphabet soup of government bodies, however, has cited police concerns about locating an £85 million venue within Belfast, where it could attract swarms of Gaelic Games [...]
Atlanta | With Heysel, hooliganism and concerns for safety at the fore, Renzo Piano in the late 1980s received a commission for a World Cup stadium in Bari, Italy. Among other architectural models and renderings covering two floors at the newly opened High Museum expansion—also a Piano commission—plans for the Stadio San Nicola indicate an emphasis [...]
London | The new Wembley Stadium, promoters claim, has more toilets (2,618) than any other building in the world. We are skeptical. If the Sears Tower in Chicago does not have more toilets, we would be sorely disappointed.
Nevertheless, Simon Garfield writes at length about the cost overruns (the cost has rocketed to £757 million, up from [...]
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, has campaigned to relocate the remains of goalkeeper-cum-existentialist Albert Camus from their resting place in Lourmarin. More about language & literature »
Links