What will the new Venezia stadium be like, as the club leaves the lagoon to aim high?

A new home looking to the future, whilst honouring the past. Venezia have just returned to Serie A and are already looking ahead to the coming seasons: from today, in fact, supporters will have the chance to register for priority access to the various sections of the new municipal stadium. Although it has yet to be completed, it has never been so close to seeing the light of day – after decades of endless technical and bureaucratic debate. At present, in the Tessera area, about one kilometre inland from Marco Polo Airport, the so-called ‘Bosco dello Sport’ is an open-air building site: it is a 115-hectare green space, at the centre of which the city’s futuristic football and basketball arenas will rise. The latter is already at an advanced stage, whilst the reinforced concrete load-bearing structure of the stadium is beginning to take shape. Work is expected to be completed in about a year’s time, with the orange-and-green club set to officially move there from the 2027/28 season onwards.

The century-long era of the Penzo stadium on the island of Sant’Elena – the second oldest Italian stadium still in use, after the Luigi Ferraris in Genoa – is thus coming to an end; a venue as picturesque as it is structurally inadequate to support Venezia’s sporting ambitions. The new stadium, the name of which has yet to be decided, has all the hallmarks of a state-of-the-art gem: multi-purpose spaces, energy efficiency, and decorative elements that evoke the lagoon landscape. It is a model project in a country where modern sports facilities are built only sparingly. The only drawback? Venezia have reached thirty; perhaps they could have aimed for thirty-one: the successor to the Penzo will have a capacity of 18,500 seats, expandable to 25,000 for major concerts. These figures are sufficient to secure a UEFA licence to host European cup matches, but not the 2032 European Championships – for which the minimum requirement is a capacity of 30,000 spectators or more.

This is a particular shame for Italy, given the infrastructure shortfall we are grappling with as the host nation: the FIGC will have to submit the tournament venues to UEFA by next month, and for many of these stadiums, it looks set to be a race against time. Then again, for Venezia, the challenge was already looking quite daunting enough as it was: for a club re-founded just over a decade ago, the aim was to secure a new, bespoke home – without taking on the risk of a costly white elephant.

The entire Bosco dello Sport project required investment of over 300 million euros, 185 of which were earmarked solely for the successor to the Penzo stadium – entirely financed by private funds. The American owners of the orange-and-green side, who have seen another change at the top in recent months, have made it clear that a stadium of the right calibre is a fundamental requirement for truly aiming high. Inaugurating it in Serie A would be the best possible start: three promotions since 2021 are encouraging signs; now Venezia are aiming for survival. And for the big move.