By sportswriter Wang Haoming

GUANGZHOU, China, April 16 (Xinhua) -- A professional football stadium with a capacity of 100,000 broke ground on Thursday in south China's city of Guangzhou.

Guangzhou Evergrande will be the owner of the country's largest professional football stadium, the capacity of which will surpass Camp Nou.

The stadium, with a floor area of 150,000 square meters, is designed with the appearance of a blooming lotus and will be a landmark of Guangzhou, the "city of floors".

The Evergrande group, the owner of Guangzhou Evergrande football club, will invest a total of 12 billion yuan (1.69 billion U.S. dollars) to build the stadium and sport complex. The plot of land the new structure will stand on cost 6.8 billion RMB (960 million dollars) alone and has an area of about 750 acres.

Xia Haijun, president of the Evergrande group, said construction will be completed before December 2022.

"We hope the stadium will host the opening ceremony of the Asian championships in 2023," Xia said.

"We will build another three or five top level professional football stadia with capacities of 80,000 to 100,000 in China," he added.

Guangzhou Evergrande has won eight Chinese super league titles in nine years from 2011 to 2019 and were also crowned AFC Champions league winners in 2013 and 2015.

China will host the 2021 FIFA club world cup and 2023 Asian championships. Hosting world football events is a major objective in the Chinese government's 2015 plan for football reform and development, with hopes that the country will have developed into a global footballing powerhouse by 2050.

However, the lack of football facilities is a major obstacle for China's football development. Enditem

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