When the Ekaterinburg Arena added seats OUTSIDE the stadium!

Take a look at an insane design that extended the Ekaterinburg Arena by 18,000 to be compliant for the 2018 FIFA World Cup!

As many of most of the footballing community are aware, the 2018 World Cup was hosted in Russia.

England fans will remember the painful loss to Croatia in the semi-finals, and the French will remember their jubilant victory over them in the final.

What many fans may not remember was the insane lengths one stadium went to in order to be compliant for the 2018 tournament…

The Ekaterinburg Arena was pegged to be one of the 12 venues to be used during the 2018 World Cup, but found itself coming up short on certain criteria to be eligible.

The stadium, which is home to Russian Premier League side FC Ural, boasted a capacity of 27,000 at the time of the tournament being arranged by FIFA.

This left the stadium short on the required capacity of FIFA’s Stadium Requirements Handbook by roughly 18,000 seats, with organisers left to find some way to meet that figure before the tournament began.

The end result is truly quite shocking – with the decision being made to place the additional 18,000 spectators outside of the stadium walls!

This left fans who found themselves at the rear seats of the new stand with the strange illusion that they were watching the game on television – with the square structure of the stadium walls framing the pitch in a strangely familiar fashion.

Remarkably, this solution was given the green light, and the Ekaterinburg Arena was included as one of the 12 host stadiums for the 2018 FIFA World Cup!

The Ekaterinburg Arena hosted 4 group stage matches – Egypt vs Uruguay, France vs Peru, Japan vs Senegal, and Mexico vs Sweden. 9 FIFA World Cup goals were scored on that pitch during the tournament.

Despite the insane additional 18,000 seating solution, the Ekaterinburg Arena saw no more than 32,789 in attendance at any one of those matches!

The unique additional stand was but a temporary addition, however, and it was dismantled following the end of the 2018 FIFA World Cup tournament.