In April last year construction began of the Guangzhou Evergrande Football Stadium, known as the “Lotus Flower” after its elaborate design. Built at a cost of $1.9 billion, to seat 100,000 people, it was to be yet another proud monument to China’s rise: the world’s biggest football stadium, for the country’s most famous football club. In most places such a project would take the best part of a decade to complete. The project was the culmination of a decade of investments by Evergrande, China’s second-biggest property company, in Guangzhou Evergrande, the team it bought a decade ago. The company was helping to realise the president Xi Jinping’s “dream of sporting great-powerdom” for China.

Source: The Times December 13, 2021 09:15 UTC