BY Alex Ebert
PUBLISHED: 02/23/2009
If Chicago wins its 2016 Olympic bid, the new Gophers football stadium will be one of six U.S. stadiums hosting soccer matches as part of the games. If the bid comes through, the stadium will be the smallest facility -- a capacity of 50,300 fans -- to host the preliminary soccer games before the finals are held at Soldier Field in Chicago .
The stadium, which so far is on its building schedule and on budget to be built by summer 2009, was made multi-purpose from the beginning, Joel Maturi, University athletics director, said.
"All of this was in our thoughts," he said. "Not necessarily Olympics, [but] even potential World Cup Soccer someday, because there needs to be a specific sized field for soccer and most football fields are not wide enough to accommodate world-class soccer."
"We're just excited to be a part of it," he said, "and we look forward to the opening."
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