Roma’s New €1bn Pietralata Stadium Gets Final Approval

Roma have received final approval for their new €1.05 billion stadium in Pietralata, clearing the biggest administrative hurdle in the club's long-running attempt to build a home of their own.

The numbers are substantial. Roma's planned investment stands at €1.04779 billion, including €696.37 million for the stadium itself. It will hold 60,605 supporters, with around 23,000 in the Curva Sud, alongside hospitality and conference space, a museum, club shop and 30 commercial units. The first stone is targeted for March 2027, with construction expected to take around two and a half years.

There is a curious detail among all those numbers. Roma are preparing to spend more than €1 billion to move into a smaller stadium.

The Olimpico can accommodate close to 70,000 for Roma matches and filling it hasn't exactly been a problem. More than 40,000 season tickets for 2025/26 sold within two weeks, while Roma recorded around 1.6 million attendances across all competitions in 2024/25, with 94 per cent occupancy.

Pietralata starts to make sense when you look at what happens around those supporters. The Olimpico belongs to Sport e Salute, is shared with Lazio and also hosts internationals, rugby, athletics and concerts. Roma play there, but they don't control the building or all the money that can be generated around it.

A stadium of their own changes that. Hospitality can be designed around Roma's corporate market, while the museum, retail, conference and event spaces can operate throughout the week. Roma already have tens of thousands of people coming through the gates. Pietralata gives them greater control over what happens when they arrive.

Leaving the Olimpico would mean much more than changing the club's matchday business, though.

Roma have played there since 1953, but the stadium was never designed around them. Its origins stretch into the old Foro Mussolini, the vast sporting complex developed under Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. Stadium construction began before the Second World War, was interrupted by the conflict and the venue Roma know today was completed under the Italian Republic.

Roma then spent more than 70 years making somebody else's ground feel like theirs. Scudetti were celebrated there, derbies fought out there and most of Francesco Totti's career unfolded there. Generations in the Curva Sud have somehow made a publicly owned athletics bowl feel intensely Romanista.

That gives the planned 23,000-seat Curva Sud at Pietralata particular importance. Modern stadiums are very good at generating revenue and occasionally quite good at resembling airports with football pitches attached. Roma need the commercial benefits without losing what makes watching Roma feel like watching Roma.

There is plenty of money at stake. Roma generated around €249 million in comparable revenue in 2023/24, placing them 23rd among the world's highest-earning clubs. A privately controlled stadium offers another route to grow matchday, hospitality and commercial income without having to find an audience first.

Roma supporters have good reason to remain cautious. Tor di Valle was declared to be in the public interest in 2014 and still never became a stadium. Those approvals were eventually revoked in 2021. The Friedkins turned to Pietralata the following year and have spent four years taking this project through the planning process.

A tender, detailed design work and a billion-euro construction project still stand between approval and kick-off. Roma supporters have seen enough stadium announcements to know the difference between a render and a turnstile.

But after more than 70 years of making the Olimpico feel like theirs for a few hours at a time, Roma finally have permission to build somewhere that can feel like theirs every day.