Wembley, San Siro, Camp Nou, Maracana – all iconic stadiums in world football, but could we be about to add the Timsah Arena to that list? The answer, is probably ‘yes’, given that the ground is the new home to Turkish side Bursaspor is in the shape of a giant crocodile.
Key facts
Club: Bursaspor
Opening: 2015
Capacity: 43,331 seats
History and description
Reflective of the club’s nickname the ‘green crocodiles’, the new 45,000-seater ground features the open mouth of a reptile, with teeth and eyes that light up on matchdays.
Take a look at the video above for how the ground looks and how the construction process happens.
This browser does not support the video element.
The design for the new Bursaspor stadium, which is called the “Timsah Arena”, tightropes a fine line of being the crazy design from the brain child of an imaginative school student to being the most bad ass stadium ever built. There could be an argument that perhaps the spotlights shooting out of the crocodile’s eyes are a tad too far.
If you ever wanted to build a massive bright green stadium then the city you would want to choose would have to be Bursa, fortunately enough for all involved. Plonk the soon-to-be Timsah Arena in the centre of Rome or Paris and it will stand out like some sort of great giant crocodile. Where as if you were to drop the Timsah Arena in Bursa, it would nestle in quite nicely.
Bursa is a city of green; indeed, the city is sometimes referred to as “Yeşil Bursa”, or “Green Bursa” due to the large amount of green seen around the city. From the large amount of parks through the city to the Yeşil Mosque and of course, to the incredibly impressive forest-covered Mt. Uludağ just south of the city, it ensures that giant crocodile or no giant crocodile, Bursa is a city shadowed by green.
The original designs for the new Timsah Arena (Timsah meaning “crocodile” in Turkish) were to be without the crocodile’s head and instead focused on making the surrounding sides of the stadium look like a crocodiles scales. Bursaspor changed their mind though, perhaps in fear of constantly having confused PETA members throwing blood on the outside of the stadium, although probably not.
The cost of the stadium is being shared with the City, Bursa are going to pay only at the moment around £42,000,000. Although as England fans will have noted with the new Wembley Stadium, these prices can soon increase. If the stadium’s valuation stays around about that same value it would cost around about half of what it would cost to buy Cristiano Ronaldo.
The stadium will also become part of the Turkish Football Federation’s bid to host the 2020 UEFA European Championships after having failed to host the competition in 2008, 2012, and 2016. The fight for the 2016 Championships was the closest Turkey has come, losing out narrowly to eventual winners, France.
SlimManU
276
You dare build this kind of thing in Africa, all pastors and prophets will organise national cleansing crusade about the demonic stadium
Christopher_Robin
200
That's a place I'm putting on my busket list to visit
RealMd13
83
Welcome to Santiago Bernabeu the stadium 🏟 thats Representing spain National Team who won 2 Euros titles 🔥 and a World Cup In 2010 and Its the home of Los Blancos arm who are The KINGs of La Liga and the Kings of Europe 33 La Liga title and 13 Champions League trophies and Its a Home of Champions! And World Cup 1982 was host in Madrid and they played in Santiago Bernabeu 💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾 HALA MADRID 🔥🔥🔥
tropicalda
75
Bursa Ataturk stadium looks quite intimidating. A bit like Parkhead in the old days. Turkish atmosphere, but without fences.
deebashbhandari
73
We all are happy to born in this modern world and we're more lucky to see this beautiful stadium..❤❤❤❤😊😊
alexGodwin
65
43 000 while camp nou is 99,000 capacity nd are about to expand it to over 100,000 capacity
deebashbhandari
62
Its the dream of every footballer to play in this stadium and football fans to visit in this stadium..❤❤❤❤
HalaHussein007
10
Camp Nou where history are made....⭕🔴❤
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With all my respect to your history and stadium you should not post this comment here. It is disrespectful. At least mention Bursaspor's new cool stadium in it. No disrespect bro.