Whether they are hosting football matches, Olympic events or music concerts, sports venues are at their best when they are packed to the rafters. But for every glitzy new all-purpose arena, there are other desolate, decrepit structures filled with history but left to rot. Poor planning, economic issues, teams’ relocation or tragic events are just some of the reasons for venues being abandoned.
Read on as we reveal some of the world's largest and most iconic sporting complexes that have been left to rot...
In April 2020, former Chinese Super League side Guangzhou FC began work on a brand-new 100,000-seater stadium, at a cost of 12 billion yuan (US$1.7bn/£1.36bn). However, The Evergrande Group, one of China’s largest property developers and the owners of the club, racked up billions of yuan of debts and collapsed. As a result, the stadium was seized by the Chinese government in November 2021, before the project was eventually halted in 2022. All that remains is a half-built base with part-filled stands and abandoned cranes.
Nicknamed ‘The Sleeping Giant’, the Nansen Ski Jump was the pride and joy of the small New Hampshire town of Milan. When it was constructed in 1936, it was the largest ski jump in the eastern United States and attracted Olympians to train there. From 1988 onwards, the jump went out of use and it was left as a gigantic concrete structure on the horizon. However, after extensive clean-up and repair work sponsored by Red Bull, former World Cup Champion skier Sarah Hendrickson flew off the jump again in 2017. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, there are efforts afoot to awaken 'The Sleeping Giant' once more.
At a cost of £318 million ($400m), the Donbass Arena opened on 29 August 2009 and became the new home of Ukrainian Premier League champions Shakhtar Donetsk. With a capacity of 52,187, the Donbass Arena once hosted four games at Euro 2012 – including England's 1-1 draw with France, and Spain’s penalty shootout victory over Portugal in the semi-finals. However, extreme damage was sustained to the turnstiles and entrances as a result of heavy artillery shelling and explosions during the Donbass war in 2014. Ten years on, it isn't clear if the stadium will ever be used again.
Dubbed the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ after opening in 1965, the Harris County Domed Stadium (as it was originally named) was the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium. It was the base of the MLB’s Houston Astros, the NFL’s Houston Oilers and, for a spell in the 1970s, the NBA’s Houston Rockets. It was also the first major sports venue to install AstroTurf. When the new modern NRG Stadium opened next door in 2002, the Astrodome was left abandoned, although it did shelter 25,000 victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Parts of it were demolished, although others still stand.
Originally constructed in 1926 (as an arena for synchronised gymnastics), the Great Strahov Stadium in the Czech capital of Prague was, at the time, the largest stadium ever constructed – holding 250,000 spectators. The field is three times as long and three times as wide as a standard football pitch. However, it hasn't hosted a competitive sporting event since 2019, and nowadays, while its stands remain abandoned and terraces overgrown with weeds, its field serves as the training ground of Sparta Prague football club. Prague put in a bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, in the hope that it would give the city an incentive to rehabilitate the UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it wasn't to be.
Located on Virginia Key, the Miami Marine Stadium is one of the most unique venues in this gallery. It was built in 1963 for the purpose of powerboat racing, but it soon became a hit venue for boxing bouts and concerts. It even had a starring role in the Elvis Presley 1967 film Clambake. Unfortunately, Hurricane Andrew wreaked havoc on the facility in 1992 and it was deemed unsafe as a result. Its primary visitors are now graffiti artists, and although the Miami City Commission approved a £35.5 million ($45m) funding bond for restoration of the Hilario Candela-designed stadium in 2016, it has now reduced that sum to just £4.8 million ($6m) and work has yet to be started. In 2018, the stadium was added to the USA’s National Register of Historic Places.
During the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, 90,000 spectators flocked to Igman Malo Polje’s ski jumps, where Finnish skier Matti Nykanen set a world record, jumping 381 feet (116m). Despite playing host to such exciting events, the jumps fell into a state of disrepair once the Games came to an end and there haven’t been any sanctioned competitions on the hills since 1984. To add to its woe, the jumps became a battlefield during the Siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, and the abandoned relics are now full of bullet holes, weeds and graffiti.
In 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant outside the Ukrainian city of Pripyat caused one of the most devastating nuclear disasters in history. While the once-abandoned, radiation-filled disaster zone has become a popular tourist destination, one thing visitors can’t do is play a football match at Avanhard Stadium. The stadium opened in 1979 and eventually gained some tenants – FC Stroitel Pripyat. But, like everyone else, they were forced to evacuate in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. Now, the crumbling stadium is thick with radiation and there is a forest growing on the pitch.
When Athens won the 2004 Summer Olympics bid, all of Greece was thrilled that the Games would be returning home for the first time since 1896. The iconic Hellinikon Olympic Complex was split into five venues – a general indoor arena, baseball and hockey centres, a softball stadium and a canoe/kayak slalom course. The latter could hold 7,600 spectators and had competition and training courses as well as a warm-up lake. It also was unique for featuring salt water as opposed to fresh. Today, though, there’s no water of any kind, and weeds have sprouted up through its cracked, drained pools. However, other sportspeople are now making use of the smooth concrete and dry spaces – skateboarders.
Although the main softball field for the 2004 Summer Olympics could host 3,400 spectators, no sport has been played there since – the infield is entirely overgrown with weeds. Admittedly, softball isn’t huge in Greece, but the lack of lawn-mowing has probably deterred many prospective players. However, the main reason for this, and other Greek venues’ deterioration, is the country’s catastrophic economic collapse in 2009, when the Games’ revenue boost became a distant memory.
The 1980 Summer Olympics were notoriously boycotted by 67 countries, including the US, and the Games saw record-low attendance. Nonetheless, the Soviet Union built several new stadiums and referred to some as ‘palaces’, including concrete mass Linnahall. The ice hall closed in 2009, and the concert venue followed suit a year later, with the outer complex lost to overgrown weeds and graffiti-adorned walls. However, in 2019, filmmaker Christopher Nolan made use of it as a stand-in for a Kyiv opera house during the filming of Tenet.
The most well-preserved ancient stadium in Greece, the Stadium of Delphi dates back to the 5th century BC. In its heyday, it could hold 6,500 spectators, and played host to track-and-field events, as well as music festivals, and underwent several renovations over the years. The stadium was abandoned in AD 394, and as the centuries have passed it has become covered with earth and used for animal grazing.
The 1936 Summer Olympics are considered the most controversial in history, with Hitler and the Nazis determined to use the Games as propaganda. Although Berlin’s Olympiapark Schwimmstadion, an aquatics venue built for the Games, is still in use as a training pool and for recreation, many of the Berlin 1936 facilities (including the pool pictured) and athletes’ accommodation lie abandoned. The Olympic Village at Elstal in Wustermark once housed 4,000 athletes, including four-times gold-medallist Jesse Owens. It’s now home to overgrown trees, rust and cobwebs, although some of it has been developed into townhouses and apartments.
This bobsleigh and luge track overlooks Sarajevo from its position on mount Trebevic, and during the 1984 Winter Olympics, roughly 50,000 spectators trekked up to watch the heats. The track was still used for international competitions up until 1991 when war broke out. During the Siege of Sarajevo, the track was damaged while being used as an artillery installation by Bosnian Serb forces. There have been plenty of talks about refurbishment so that sliding sports can return to the Balkans, but none have come to fruition yet.
Opening in 1953 with 50,000 seats for spectators, the Stadion Za Luzankami used to be home to Zbrojovka Brno FC. Unfortunately, the venue has sat idle since 2001 after the football club was forced to relocate because the stadium no longer met FIFA standards. Trees and bushes grew and homeless people moved in, before FC Zbrojovka Brno captain Petr Svancara took matters into his own hands. With the help of crowdfunding, he successfully restored the stadium so that he could play his farewell game there. Although the club’s youth team trains nearby, the stadium has since returned to its overgrown state.
Before it was renovated and turned into the innovative Trampolino Olimpico for the 1956 Winter Olympics, the previously modest wooden platform was known as the Franchetti Jump, named after Baron Franchetti, whose generous donations helped construct it in 1923. While the Franchetti allowed skiers to jump around 130 feet (40m) high, the renovated Olympic jump saw athletes flying 260 feet (79.2m) into the air. Trampolino Olimpico eventually lost its certification in 1990 and has remained abandoned ever since. It appeared in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only.
The hills are alive with the sound of wind creaking through this abandoned but absolutely breathtaking former Olympic ski jump constructed by German architect Heini Klopfer. During the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics, this venue in Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte seated an impressive 50,000 spectators. Unlike similar former Olympic jumps in Italy and Sarajevo, there haven’t been any attempts to resuscitate it. And with a population of just over 1,000, the small commune town in the hills of southeastern France isn't exactly a tourist trap.
Check out these incredible photos of abandoned islands the world forgot
Around the corner from a congested Luanda street, partially covered by a row of shops and food stalls, stands a reminder of Angola's colonial past. Up to the mid-1970s, the capital city’s residents crammed into the stadium's 20,000 seats to watch bullfights or ‘touradas’ – introduced to the African country by its Portuguese colonisers. The arena's sand circle and seat rows can be entered through a corrugated iron gate, while the steps are lined with rubbish.
Set to be the first major international circuit in Communist-controlled Vietnam and drawing inspiration from tracks in Monaco, Suzuka and Sepang, Hanoi's Formula One circuit has been closed to the public since the pandemic forced the Grand Prix to be cancelled in 2020. And it has not been considered as an F1 venue since the city’s mayor Nguyen Duc Chung – a major supporter of the race – was arrested in 2021. The £540 million ($680m) circuit hosted a promotional event for Honda on New Year's Eve 2022, but is now left abandoned, covered in overgrown grass and weeds.
Despite being located in the Champagne region, the current state of Reims-Gueux Circuit is nothing to toast about. Established in 1926, as the second venue of the Grand Prix de la Marne, it was known for its famous triangular shape, corners and changes in elevation. Almost half a century after it opened, the once state-of-the-art circuit made up of rural public roads was deemed obsolete, even dangerous, and the last race was held there on 11 June 1972. Now its iconic timekeepers’ building and scoreboard are relics of a bygone era.
The Coventry Bees stopped racing at the city’s motorsport stadium on Rugby Road in 2016. Nearly eight years later, plans to demolish the site for housing and a 3G football pitch with a pavilion were thrown out by a planning inspector following a campaign by speedway fans. The stadium, which is now nearly a century old, is in a sorry state after several fires, including an arson attack in 2022, caused substantial damage.
Designed by Antonio Pintor Ocete, and constructed at the end of the 19th century, Santa Cruz Bullring hosted its last bull fight in December 1983. Bullfighting was eventually banned in the Canary Islands in 1991 and the venue was subsequently used for carnival events, boxing, wrestling and concerts until 2003. There are plans to demolish part of it, leaving only two fronts of the ring, with the centre of it becoming a public park.
The Stadio Flaminio in Rome has hosted many important sporting events over the years, but it now lies in ruin. Built in 1959 as a venue for the 1960 Summer Olympics, it was the home of football teams Roma and Lazio in the 1989/90 season when the Stadio Olimpico was being renovated. It also became the home of the Italian national rugby team for its Six Nations home matches from 2000-2011, and even staged Michael Jackson and David Bowie concerts. Despite its impressive 30,000-seater capacity and history, it has been left to rot.
While Rotherham United FC moved onto a shiny new base, the New York Stadium, in 2012, many of the club’s supporters still consider Millmoor to be their 'spiritual home'. But despite Millers fans’ affections for the place, the ground is in a sorry state, with overgrown plant life, graffiti across the walls and broken seats surrounding the dried-out pitch. Millmoor has been put to use as a site for youth football in recent years, while scrap merchants CF Booth have capitalised on the vacant lot, using it to store and dismantle rail cars.
Named after Irish revolutionary Roger Casement, west Belfast GAA ground Casement Park has been earmarked as a venue for the Euro 2028 football tournament, which will be staged jointly between England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Reports have suggested the cost to revamp Casement Park into a shiny new stadium will be around £308 million ($390m). However, it will be a race against time, as, just four years ahead of the tournament, Casement Park remains overgrown and derelict.
Located 15 miles (24km) southwest of Athens, the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex was built to stage handball, beach volleyball, volleyball and taekwondo at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. While the Faliro Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre stadium has a capacity of 9,600, it has been used sparingly over the past 20 years, and is now in a state of disrepair. Although the venue is emblematic of Greece’s failure to capitalise on the Games’ legacy, there are now plans in place to repurpose it in the future.
The small seaside town of Giarre sits on the slopes of Mount Etna and is home to a remarkable collection of huge, half-built and abandoned buildings. One of them is an unfinished sports stadium, which was designed in 1985 to seat 20,000 people and was originally set to be a polo ground, despite there being little interest in polo in Sicily. Locals play football on the bare-earth pitch, while joggers trot around a rotting track.
During the mid- Noughties, Spanish football club Valencia, who were riding high following La Liga titles in 2002 and 2004, had visions of a brand new stadium to compete in. The £300 million ($377m) Nou Mestalla was supposed to be Los Ches’ new home, but the project, which first broke ground in 2007, was halted due to financial problems. It has since been abandoned and remains in a state of ruin. However, as the stadium has been mooted as one of the venues for the 2030 World Cup (Spain is one of the host countries), there may be a future for the arena after all. Watch this space.
Now discover eerie abandoned amusement parks around the world