Work begins at world's largest football stadium, with capacity of 100,000, in China - in pics

The Evergrande Group has started work on what will be the world's largest purpose-built football stadium, with a capacity of 100,000 seats, in the southern city of Guangzhou in China.

Construction of the Guangzhou Evergrande Soccer Stadium, also called the 'Lotus Flower Stadium', started on April 16 and is set to cost around 12 billion yuan (Dh6.2 bn), the Chinese real estate group was quoted as saying by Reuters.

It will be home to Chinese Super League side Guangzhou Evergrande and will surpass Barcelona's Camp Nou as the largest purpose-built football venue by capacity.

North Korea's multi-purpose Rungrado 1st of May Stadium would remain the largest sports stadium in the world with around 114,000 seats. The Camp Nou has a capacity of just over 99,000.

The lotus design was conceptualised by Shanghai-based designer Hasan Syed and chosen because it is a traditional Chinese flower.

The stadium would also include entertainment, commercial and dining areas and is likely to be completed by the end of 2022.

The company said it was building the venue as China did not have enough professional, purpose-built football stadiums and that it hoped the facility would help boost Chinese football.

Evergrande said it also planned to build two more stadiums of around 80,000 capacity each in China, adding that designs for those facilities were currently under review.