City of Manchester Stadium
Plans to build a stadium in east Manchester were made around 1990 as part of the city's bid to host the 2000 Summer Olympics. Manchester City Council paid for a design for an 80,000 seat stadium on a brownfield site known as Eastlands. However, in October 1993, the games were awarded to Sydney, Australia. Manchester then made a successful bid to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games. They used the stadium plans from the Olympic bid. In 1996, the planned stadium competed with Wembley Stadium to gain funding to become the national stadium. The money was used to redevelop Wembley instead.