The 10 Most ‘Decaying’ Stadiums in World Football [Ranked]

There are many beautiful stadiums around the world, Wembley Stadium being one of them, but to maintain that position, the stadium needed to be rebuilt in 2007. The old Wembley, while an all-seater stadium, was really an old-fashioned terraced bowl that had seats retrofitted in to meet the requirements of the Taylor Report.

Like all stadia, they need maintaining and improving if they are to survive the test of time. This comes at a price. Clubs pay fortunes for players, but at times more so for their homes. The world of football is littered with stadiums are no longer used and left to deteriorate.

Perhaps the ultimate example is Valencia’s Nou Mestalla, which is yet to host a game, dominating the city’s skyline while not yet finished. That Spanish ground is ranked number one in the list of the 10 most decaying stadiums in world football. A host of other stadiums from around the world also feature within the top 10 list.

10 Stadio Oosterpark

FC Groningen of the Netherlands former home

The stadium was home to Dutch club FC Groningen until they moved out in 2006. It was where a teenage Johan Cruyff scored on his Ajax debut. It was also where Arjen Robben made his name back in the early 2000s.

Having been left to the elements, the seats, proudly still intact, have faded to a lifeless grey colour. A snug, but atmospheric ground, Oosterpark could hold just under twenty thousand by the late 1980s. Robben returned to Groningen right at the end of his career, but by this time he’d missed the chance to play at the old ground with the club having long moved on.

9 Arena da Amazonia in Brazil

Stadium was built for the 2014 World Cup

The stadium was built for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and was the venue for England’s two-one loss to Italy in the group stages. It was used for four matches in that tournament. Fast forward 10 years and the stadium hosts local games but rarely do they attract any more than a thousand spectators, who look pretty lost in the forty-thousand capacity.

Since the World Cup, some parts of the roof have been removed with this stadium being referred to as the ultimate white elephant, estimated to have cost the Brazilian government in the region of £200 to 300 million. Operating and maintenance costs remain an issue, so the future of this stadium is unclear, as is the wisdom and spending such a great deal on stadiums with such a limited shelf life.

8 Stadio Flaminio in Italy

Lazio and Roma’s temporary home for the 1989/90 season

The Stadio Flaminio in Rome was built in the late 1950s in time for the Italian capital’s hosting of the Olympic games in 1960. It was the venue for the Olympic football final in which Yugoslavia beat Denmark in the gold medal match by three goals to one. Up until 2011, it was home to the Italian rugby team.

During the 1989/90 season, when Rome’s Olympic stadium was undergoing renovations, the ground was used as a temporary home to Roma and Lazio. That was the year Maradona’s Napoli won Serie A, he scored at the Stadio Flaminio in a one-one draw with Roma. The following year, both Rome clubs were back at their home ground.

7 Stadion Za Luzankami in Czechia

Home of the 1978 Czechoslovakian champions Zbrojovka Brno

In 1995, Stadion Za Luzankami hosted a friendly between Czechia and Finland, with the hosts winning four-one after a brace from former Liverpool and Aston Villa striker Patrick Berger. Although the field has not seen a game since 2012, the terracing still looks like an inviting place to watch a game.

The stadium was the former home of FC Zbrojovka Brno, who in 1977, beat Dukla Prague to win the Czech title by three points, but they were forced to leave their home because the ground did not meet FIFA regulations. That said, it still looks like an interesting venue to watch or play a game of football.

6 Avanhard Stadium in Ukraine

Home of FC Stroitel Pripyat in the Chernobyl district

The Avanhard Stadium in Ukraine is perhaps the most extreme example of an abandoned football stadium. Situated in Chernobyl, which endured a disaster in 1986, after the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which was near the city of Pripyat, which was later included in the exclusion zone as the area was deemed unsafe for human life.

Today, the city is still abandoned. The stadium was built the year of the disaster and therefore never hosted a game. Today the pitch has been completely reclaimed by nature, with trees having grown tall where the turf once momentarily stood.

5 Cathkin Park in Scotland

The Glasgow-based ground was once home to Third Lanark

Cathkin Park is the perfect example of a footballing relic living in harmony with nature. With the pitch now a municipal park, the terraces remain and can still be a noisy place. But now, instead of being lined with people, it’s a series of trees that stand on the terrace, with the birds sat in them providing a chorus.

It’s reported that Scotland beat England there way back in 1896 in front of a crowd of twenty thousand. Third Lanark’s last match at the ground was back in 1967, by which time the ground had fallen into a state of disrepair. Now in the twenty-first century, the metal terraces and the stands still survive.

4 Guangzhou FC Stadium

New stadium in China was meant to be greatest in the world

Guangzhou FC were due to build the greatest stadium in the world. A one-hundred-thousand-seater masterpiece that was to wow the football world and be a fitting home for the side that won the Chinese title seven times in a row between 2011 and 2017, but amazingly, the stadium was never finished.

he club owners ran into serious financial difficulty owing debts thought to be in the region of £220 billion. The club’s fortunes didn’t do much better, as they began to struggle in China’s second tier after finishing rock bottom of the first division in 2022. What’s left is an eyesore on the landscape and construction of a stadium that will likely never be completed.

3 Estadio Sant’Elia in Italy

Cagliari’s former home

Cagliari’s Estadio Sant’Elia hosted all three of England’s group games during the 1990 World Cup. Originally able to hold sixty-thousand spectators, the capacity was reduced over the years. Located on the southern tip of the Italian island of Sardinia, it’s within a hefty goal-kick of the sea.

Today, what was the pitch is a scorched wasteland. With local authorities disagreeing on a way forward and the ground needing a major overhaul if it was to continue being viable as a Serie A ground, Cagliari left the stadium in 2017, forty-seven years after first moving in.

2 Donbas Arena, Ukraine

Shakhtar Donetsk’s former home has long been dormant

The Donbas Arena is now unrecognisable after being abandoned in 2014. Since Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, Shakhtar Donetsk have had to abandon their home ground. The stadium only actually opened in 2009 and was home to some of Shakhtar’s finest moments.

It was also a ground used for Euro 2012, hosting the game in which England beat the hosts with a goal from Wayne Rooney, as well as the semi-finals, with Spain eventually beating Portugal four-two on a penalty shoot-out. The stadium has fallen victim to recent shelling with the once neat pathways leading to the stadium festooned with ever-growing weeds.

1 Nou Mestalla in Spain

New Valencia stadium that never was

Valencia’s new stadium was due to be ready in 2009. This wasn’t just a new stadium, this was to be the world’s best. It is still to be finished. Much like the UK, in 2008 Spain endured a recession, with property seriously impacted and a banking crisis shortly following. It was then reported that Valencia were in debt to the tune of €550m.

By 2009, the club stopped all construction work on the stadium. The club are still optimistic that the ground can be finished, but the ongoing history of continual setbacks raises serious doubts over whether it will ever really be finished and ready to host games. So, rather than a modern stadium, what is left looks more like an artefact from ancient Rome.