Atlético Madrid will follow in West Ham foot steps by moving into a converted athletics stadium next season and have recently revealed a redesigned club badge just like the Hammers did before they moved home.
The new rounder badge pays homage to the first ever logo used by the club after its founding in 1903. The crest has so far met with a mixed reception among the Atleti faithful, with fans taking to social media to express their displeasure at the move.
Atlético Madrid’s new 67,000 stadium will be sponsored by the Chinese property company Dalian Wanda Group and is built on the site of the existing Estadio La Peineta stadium. The new stadium will be called the Wanda Metropolitano stadium.
They will move from the Vicente Calderón, their home for the last 50 years, to the new 67,000 capacity ground located to the north-east of the Spanish capital in August, 2017.
The one crucial difference is the rebuild was designed as a football-specific stadium with the stands close to the pitch, however the plans allow for the temporary construction of an athletics tracks on top of the lower tier should a Madrid bid for a future Summer Olympics be successful.
Atlético’s management have been following events at the London Stadium closely to understand what they can learn from the West Ham move earlier this year. They plan to send a delegation to London for a fact finding mission before the end of the season.
What might have been
The Spanish are imho more nostalgic than us, they can certainly learn from a lot of mistakes that were made by non football people in the design of the stadium. In terms of it’s plot and the journey to and from the Stadium I think ours is a resounding success even if a little difficult to Police. The main thing they might learn is that unless they get performances right on the pitch they shouldn’t expect a smooth transition with the fans, it is difficult moving at any time and with so many fans all will have different opinions of what is good and what is not, if the team goes backwards on the pitch it could sustain unrest because it will look like a bad decision in the short term.