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A Football Landmark Ringed by the Sea: Overseas Chinese Media Tour Visits Dalian Suoyuwan Stadium and Football Culture Museum
Reporter 王子龙
On September 18, the 2026 'Chasing the Chinese Dream, Discovering Liaoning' overseas Chinese-language media delegation visited Dalian Suoyuwan Stadium (Zhongsheng Suoyuwan Stadium) in the Suoyuwan Business District of Dalian's Ganjingzi District. Representatives from 17 overseas Chinese-language media outlets across 12 countries and regions, together with central Chinese media outlets, toured the professional stadium that opened in April 2023 — China's first and only professional football stadium surrounded by the sea on three sides, offering a 270-degree ocean view. As the largest and most advanced venue in Northeast China and the first Chinese stadium certified by FIFA, Suoyuwan Stadium has won major 2023 honors including China's Gold Award for Steel Structure and a U.S. Muse Creative Award.
Walking through the venue, the delegation learned that Suoyuwan Stadium covers a total floor area of 136,000 square meters and seats 63,000 spectators, with five three-tier suites, 52 five-tier suites and 15 function rooms, covering general seating, VVIP and VIP seating, and accessible companion seating. The pitch meets the international standard of 105 by 68 meters of natural turf, backed by two standard training pitches. The architecture, inspired by ocean waves and conch shells and built around an ocean-blue palette, uses a PTFE/ETFE membrane structure — one of the world's largest and most varied applications of membrane-roof coverage.
The delegation was told that since opening, Suoyuwan Stadium has hosted more than 50 international matches, professional league games and sports and cultural events, including the 2023 China men's national team international friendly, the 2024 Qatar AFC U23 Asian Cup qualifiers, the 2024 and 2025 FISU World University Football World Cups, and 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers for the United States, Canada and Mexico. It has also served as the home ground for Dalian Ren of the Chinese Super League in 2023, Dalian Yingbo of China League One in 2024, and Dalian Yingbo Haifa of the Super League in 2025. Total attendance neared one million in 2025, with a single-match high of 62,330; in 2026 the stadium broke its own record again with a peak single-match attendance of 62,877. Its 2025 attendance figures ranked first in Asia and among the world's highest, earning it the title of 'Asia's most popular home ground'; for the 2026 season (March–May), average attendance reached 60,970 per match, ranking first in Asia and 11th in the world.
Standing in the stands and looking out, what struck this reporter most was that the stadium's 'surrounded by the sea on three sides' design is no gimmick — the sea breeze reaches the stands directly, and the 270-degree ocean view fuses the match with the city's own coastline. Embedding a sports venue this deeply into a city's natural setting is still rare in China, which makes it easier to understand how Suoyuwan Stadium became 'Asia's most popular home ground' within just two years. For the visiting overseas Chinese-language media, that firsthand impression conveyed Dalian's confidence as a 'football city' more directly than any statistic could.
On transport, Suoyuwan Stadium is a roughly 320-meter walk from Exit C of Suoyuwan South Station on Metro Line 5, and 540 meters from the Zuanshiwan bus stop on Route 905; by car, it is about 20–30 minutes from the airport or train station via the subsea tunnel and the city's main arterial roads. After touring the stadium, the delegation moved to the eastern side of the second floor to visit the Dalian Football Culture Museum, which opened for trial operation on October 1, 2025.
Spanning 1,350 square meters, the Dalian Football Culture Museum is built around the theme of 'carrying forward a century of football history and showcasing the character of a football city,' with 14 themed exhibition zones — including a prologue hall, A Century of Change, The Golden Era, Steel Roses, Classic Stories, Battlefields Then and Now, Cradle of Champions, National Team Stars, Cultural Flair, Grassroots Pitches, Unforgettable Moments, the Twelfth Man Fan Corner, Hall of Honor and Looking to the Future. Since its trial opening, the museum has hosted more than a hundred government and corporate delegations and welcomed over 10,000 visitors from across society.
Inside, a 15-meter timeline traces a century of Dalian football, from its beginnings in 1921 to 1951, when a Dalian-born player was selected for China's first national team. The Golden Era zone displays footage and artifacts from the Dalian Wanda dynasty's landmark matches and its unbeaten 55-match run in the Jia-A league. The Steel Roses zone reviews more than 40 years of the Dalian women's team, including seven national titles and a three-peat championship run. The Cradle of Champions zone presents the city's youth training system and school-football pathways, while the Grassroots Pitches zone showcases the 'Lian Super' amateur league's football ecosystem of more than 7,600 teams and nearly 200,000 participants. The Twelfth Man Fan Corner, meanwhile, captures fan culture — including a deaf supporters' club and terrace singing — as an emotional thread tying the city to the sport.
The stadium and museum are understood to operate as one integrated site, combining high-standard hospitality, immersive experiences, cultural outreach and city-image promotion to serve needs ranging from official visits and cultural exchange to team study trips and publicity events. Several delegation members said that moving from the pitch to the century-spanning exhibits, in a single visit, let them read Dalian's depth as a 'football city' and the open, inclusive spirit of this coastal city side by side.
