Imagine spending 200 million euros, on a near 70,000 seat stadium, in one of the richest cities of the country, home to the counties most popular and domestically successful club, and yet it's such a disaster it gets demolished in just 16 years.
This is the story of the Stadio Delle Alpi (Stadium of the Alps) in Turin, Italy, temporary home of Juventus and Torino. The stadium was an ambitious project aimed at replacing the aging Stadio Comunale and being one of the major stages of the 1990 FIFA World Cup.
Immediately the major issues were evident. First of all the stadium was too big and the stands too far from the pitch, making the atmosphere often cold. Maximum capacity was rarely reached, Juventus had average attendances as low as 26 thousand and Torino as low as 9 thousand. The distance between the stands and the field was due to a track meant to host track and field events, however, believe it or not, due to a lack of warm-up track not a single major athletics event was ever held. Lastly, the sheer size of the construction made maintenance and game day operations very expensive, which meant rent for the clubs was expensive as well.
The dislike for this stadium was so great that in the 1994/95 UEFA Cup Semi-Final and Final Juventus decided to host the matches at the San Siro, 260km away.
All these issues over time culminated in the decision of Juventus buying the stadium for just 25 million euros from the city, demolishing it, and building the Juventus Stadium in its place. In the meantime the Stadio Comunale was finally remodeled and is Torino's home to this day.
21 years between breaking ground and full demolition, just 16 years between the first and last match ever played. Italy has many examples of terrible stadium related decisions that hold the country back to this day, but none quite exemplify this as well as the Delle Alpi.