Winter Olympic stadium set for demolition after 100 years with $1.5bn replacement abandoning heritage

Milan Cortina 2026 is officially here.

The Winter Olympics will kick off with an opening ceremony like no other on February 6 at the San Siro stadium – home of iconic Italian football teams AC Milan and Inter Milan.

AFP

Known as “The Temple of Football”, the 76,000 capacity stadium and it’s brutalist architecture has played host to some of football’s biggest events since its opening in 1926, including two FIFA World Cups.

But a century on, and the iconic San Siro will host one of the biggest events of all – the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

With the spectacle all tailored around the theme of ‘harmony’, a star-studded list of names will be putting on performances, including that of Italian opera icon Andrea Bocelli and global pop sensation Mariah Carey.

“The Opening Ceremony is not just an exercise in technology or spectacle. Above all, it is a story made up of people and emotions,” creative director Marco Balich said.

“In a complex world, we want to offer a message of harmony, beauty and peace that can speak to everyone.

“San Siro Stadium is a monument to football, and it represents a lot to fans around the world.”

But the San Siro won’t be the only location used to kick off the next four weeks of winter action.

In an Games-first, there will be not one, but two Olympic Cauldrons, located at Arco della Pace in Milano and Piazza Dibona in Cortina.

“It will be the first opening ceremony [across multiple venues] in the history of the [Winter] Olympics,” Balich explained. “This brings with it many opportunities and many challenges.

“The opportunities are to allow the athletes to participate, all of them, in the athlete parade.

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“At the same time, we have to divide the show into many locations to involve everyone.

“Of course the hub is San Siro Stadium but overall we need to create a big embrace that will allow all the athletes and audience to simultaneously join in the peak moment of the ceremony, such as the lighting of the cauldron, the athlete parade and the Torchbearer moments”.

Furthermore, the athletes parade will also take place across three other locations aside from the San Siro, at Cortina d’Ampezza, Livigno and Predazzo.

A cultural icon will be no longer

But the opening ceremony is also likely to be the San Siro’s final major event, with both of its Serie A giants set to move to a brand new 71,500 capacity stadium.

The project is expected to cost a whopping €1.25 billion ($1.5bn).

With an estimated completion date of 2030, the iconic concrete construction of La Scala del calcio –which the two teams purchased for €197 million in September — is slated to be demolished a year later in 2031.

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The new ground is expected to see both AC and Inter – who have called the San Siro home since 1947 – earn an additional €180 million each in revenue.

This equates to approximately £157 million per season.

Whilst an iconic structure, the San Siro has long been not up to the standards of UEFA, marred by its exclusion as a stadium for the 2032 European Championships.

“San Siro has been excluded by UEFA as a stadium for Euro 2032 – it simply doesn’t have all the facilities that are needed for modern football,” AC Milan chairman Paolo Scaroni said in November. “We badly need a new stadium.

“We have always had a good relationship with Inter, so it makes sense to continue sharing the new stadium and split the costs of building and running it.”

Inter chief executive Giuseppe Marotta added: “It is a historic moment and a date that will remain in the history books for all of Italian football, as it is the first time two clubs have come together to take such a big step.

“We must have respect for this structural icon, which was the container for great passion and memories, so our objective is to build a new container that can be the scene for many more wonderful moments.”

The 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony is a prime opportunity to add to the stadium’s storied history before one chapter ends and the next begins.