Re: Re: New Lansdowne Road Stadium proposal unveiled

@Thomond Park wrote:

The all time World Cup attendance record is held by a Stadium in Montevideo from a final in the 1930’s when over 140,000 people crammed into a stadium which would today have a seated capacity of 50-60,000]
[Pedantry]To my knowledge, the largest attendance at a world cup finals match was at the deciding match of the 1950 world cup between Uruguay and Brazil. This was at the Maracanã stadium in Rio. It had been built for the world cup – 10,000 people were involved in its construction! When finished, the capacity was 43,000 higher than that of the previous record holder, Glasgow’s Hampden Park. The official attendance at the final was 174,000 although some sources put the real attendance at up to about 220,000.[/pedantry]

Landsdowne is the correct call and I really hope that the planners will be in a position to grant permission without too many modifications.

I agree. It is a pity that they couldn’t have turned the pitch around and made the capacity a bit bigger, but the two clubs have a lease on the back pitch which they were unwilling to give up. There was also a report done several years ago which concluded that the only circumstances in which the Irish soccer team would need an 80,000 capacity ground would be for a competitive qualifying match against England. Whether this is still true, and what the situation is with demand for big rugby matches, I do not know. The ratio of corporate seats to total capacity is also comparable to that of the new Wembley (about 19,000 out of 90,000)

The north stand would also seem like a suitable place to dedicate for away fans for a big soccer international against any of our neighbours.