The Environment Ministry has given the green light for the construction of AEK’s new soccer stadium at Nea Philadelphia in northern Athens after it approved a prerequsitie environmental study. Ekathimerini report.

“I signed the license for AEK’s new stadium,” Minister Panos Skourletis told journalists on Friday.

Skourletis’s approval cleared a major hurdle for the construction of the stadium – to be named Hagia Sofia after the historic church and monument in Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul, where the club’s founders hailed from.

It is set to cost 65 million euros – out of which 20 million will come from European subsidies granted to the Attica Regional Authority – and will have a seating capacity of between 32,000 and 34,000.

According to reports, AEK now only needs the approval of the construction plans before work can begin. This process usually takes two months.