Stadium
Palmeiras plays its home games at Estádio Palestra Itália. In the past its capacity was listed as 35,000 spectators. However, even though its grandstands were extended in the late 1990s, it currently only seats 27,640 people due to regulations which enforce safety and comfort. The venue is also known as Parque Antártica because the area was a park built by the Antarctica Paulista Company in the beginning of the last century, before being acquired by Palmeiras in 1920.
Local derbies against São Paulo are still played at home, while derbies against Corinthians are usually played in a larger stadium.
There are plans to rebuild the stadium. The project proposes the first FIFA ready stadium in South America, billed as a multipurpose events arena (for shows, seminars, meetings, parties, etc.). Capacity will be increased to 43,000 seats and 2,000 press staff for soccer games. Many other facilities will be in place, including: enhanced parking area, VIP area, 3 restaurant and bar, helicopter point, etc.
On July 9, 2010, Palmeiras played its last match in Palestra Itália against Boca Juniors in an international friendly, due to the construction of the new stadium, the Arena Palestra Itália.
The Arena Palestra Itália will hold up to 46,000 seats and should be inaugurated in October 2013.
Read more about this topic: Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras
Famous quotes containing the word stadium:
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“In their eyes I have seen
the pin men of madness in marathon trim
race round the track of the stadium pupil.”
—Patricia K. Page (b. 1916)
“The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)