AS Roma owner James Pallotta chose to joke about the constructiom time of their stadium being similar to that of the Colosseum. Actually no, the stadium will likely take longer...

James Pallotta was one of the key speakers during during the Sports Decision Maker congress. Because AS Roma has grown significantly under his presidency, especially in terms of digital presence and marketing, his speech was watched closely. Even more so because of the pending development in Tor di Valle, which would give Roma dominance in Italy in terms of stadium revenue.

© ASRoma.it

It's thus no wonder that the proposed 52,000+ stadium is what Pallotta began with. “Construction times? No-one knows how long it took for the Colosseum, but we are close.” Pallotta joked. In short, this means there is no solid groundbreaking date.

Not surprising, but it also means that ground works could be expected more in 2020 than 2019. Which is yet one more delay as groundbreaking had previously been announced every year, starting from 2014.

But while we're at the Colosseum... it actually seems Roma has no chance of delivering the stadium as fast as the legendary landmark, by which the stadium's architecture is inspired.

According to information collected by Harvard professor M.K. Hopkins, it took roughly 10 years to plan, fund and deliver the ancient arena. Meanwhile it's already nearly 2,700 days (over 7 years) since AS Roma selected the Tor di Valle location and construction is yet to start.