ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr needs to act on stadium plan as Canberra Stadium grows old

A new stadium in Canberra's city centre should be a no-brainer. The stadium at Bruce is almost 50 years old, only 12 seating bays in the 25,011-seat venue are undercover, and fans are far from the action in a sprawling design at a venue built around an athletics track.

Imagine a venue in the city, accessible via the expanding light rail network or a pub crawl through Braddon and Civic.

Can you picture it? Now stop, because ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr holds the tools in Canberra's stadium debate, and he may have just driven the final nail into the coffin.

For years Barr has been adamant Canberra needed men's A-League content to make a new stadium a viable investment.

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"One of the weaknesses of a stadium in the Canberra context with only two current football users, is that it would only be used 20-30 times per year. There's no other content," Barr said on August 30, 2022.

Well, the A-League is coming. Canberra will have a new team for the 2024-25 season which, if it mirrors the current competition schedule, would run from October until May.

Stephen Larkham's ACT Brumbies are chasing Super Rugby titles from February until June while the Canberra Raiders - the hottest sporting ticket in town if crowd figures are anything to go by - are playing from March until September.

When asked on Thursday if the impending arrival of the A-League men's team and more year-round content changes stadium plans, Barr offered this: "No, it doesn't. I think it was already factored in. I don't think that it really alters the situation at all."

How could the ACT government, having already blamed delays on costs and venue complications, have already factored in a team that didn't exist?

Now the focus shifts to a rejuvenation of the Bruce precinct. Barr is already talking about hotels and breweries being built near the existing stadium.

Then there is the matter of the actual stadium, pulling down one stand at a time and rebuilding it while the stadium is being used year-round across three codes.

"There's no doubt in my mind, by the mid 2020s, at least part of the current Canberra Stadium will be 50 years old. That is the end of its life," Barr said in 2019.

For more than a decade, a city has been strung along. If the cold, concrete bowl of Bruce is the future, it's time to bring it into the 21^st century.

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