Expert calls for new national stadium off the M8

A NEW national arena for major sporting and cultural events located between Glasgow and Edinburgh should be pursued, according to one of the country’s leading events experts.

A 60,000-capacity arena with a retractable roof could replace both Hampden and Murrayfield as the home of international football and rugby matches in the next ten years, Paul Bush has suggested.

The figurehead of the Scottish Government’s EventScotland agency for the last decade said a weather-proofed venue could hold other vast sporting and entertainment shows throughout the year.

Bush, who is responsible for leading efforts to bring major events to Scotland, said the country needed to take a “hard look” at the possibility of a new national stadium over the next decade.

He has called for potential sites off the M8 to be explored a development capable of emulating the success of the 74,500-capacity Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, where some of the UK’s biggest events are regularly staged.

The second-largest sports venue in the world with a retractable roof, it was built to host the Rugby World Cup in 1999.

Bush, a key figure in the staging of the Ryder Cup and Commonwealth Games in recent years, warned that both Hampden and Murrayfield were “ageing” facilities which would need “significant investment” simply to remain viable in future.

But he admitted that both of them could become redundant if a modern new stadium was to win the backing of the various sporting authorities and other public backers.

The possibility of international football matches moving away from Hampden emerged last year when the SFA revealed it was exploring alternatives to renewing its lease with Queen’s Park, which expires in 2020.

Bush told Scotland on Sunday: “You’ve got to have dreams and aspirations – if you don’t, nothing happens.

“I’d love to have a venue like the Millennium Stadium in Wales in Scotland. It’s got the right capacity, it has a roof, it has all the right corporate and conferencing facilities, and it has a hybrid pitch, which has phenomenal durability.

“We’ve got two ageing stadiums in Scotland in Hampden and Murrayfield. They will need significant investment in the next couple of decades.

“Football and rugby have never felt that they could be bedfellows, but maybe in terms of economies of scale and synergies they could be. They are being played on the same hybrid pitches now. A shared stadium should not be off the table.

“You have to have a sense of realism. The capital costs of building a new facility are obviously a challenge. But if you stuck it in the middle of Scotland, the whole country could easily get to it. You have to think about the whole spectator experience.”

He pointed out that certain events such as the Champions League final, world title boxing fights and motor racing events could not be held in Scotland because existing stadia were either not big enough or did not have the right facilities.