Arena das Dunas

City: Natal, capital of the State of Rio Grande do Norte.

Capacity: ?32,000 attendants.

Official name: Arena das Dunas - Estadio Joao Carlos de Vasconcelos Machado.

Origin of name: Natal is known as City of Dunes; all the Brazilian coast from Rio Grande do Norte to Maranhao is covered by dunes (the dunes of Lencois Maranhenses attract tourists from all over the World).

Joao Carlos de Vasconcelos Machado is the engineer who designed the old stadium, popularly known as Machadao.

It is not certain yet whether the new arena will maintain the old name.

Design: Populous?(formerly?HOK Sport Venue Event).

Constructor: OAS.

Estimated cost: R$ 400 million.

The budget of Arena das Dunas is the most uncertain of all stadiums of the World Cup 2014.

First off, the initial project was totally changed. The image at the top of this page shows that the project included the construction of the stadium, the reconstruction of the entire Government administration, and the inclusion of a complex of hotels, business towers, etc. Today, the stadium alone (see image below) would make everybody happy enough.

In March 2010, the Government was still thinking how to conduct the bidding. The first tender had no bidders (November 2010). It was only in March 2011 that the constructor (OAS) was defined.

Rumors go that, to not run the risk of staying out of the Cup, Natal was very generous with OAS; the newspapers inform that the total cost of the stadium would fetch R$ 1 billion.

Matches and teams