Lansdowne Road Stadium Development Company is looking far afield to bring the best in stadium design to Ireland, writes Robin O'Brien Lynch

The recent spate of drug test failures among the world's top athletes has given professional sport's reputation a battering. Cynics mourn the death of the Olympic spirit, and television audience and ticket sales are down among a disaffected audience.

However, the naysayers are missing the point. The Olympic motto - faster, higher, stronger - never actually referred to the athletes. The real competition is between successive host nations: who can put on the best show, the most amazing opening ceremony, the friendliest locals, the smartest infrastructure and, most importantly, the best stadium.

Developments in stadia construction over the past couple of decades has seen a complete swing away from barn-like structures with a field in the middle to an expression of technological superiority and the pride of a nation.

At home we have some catching up to do. Croke Park can hold its own among the world's finest, but until now that has been a domestic affair, with limited international exposure.

Lansdowne Road's best qualities are its charm, vivid sense of history and location. However, the stadium is becoming increasingly anachronistic as technology advances.

Of course, that is all set to change and within a couple of years the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) and Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) will have a venue that combines the latest technology, is still on the Dart line and gives close access to the hostelries of Ballsbridge and Baggott Street.

The Lansdowne Road Stadium Development Company (LSRDC), a joint venture between the FAI and IRFU, is waiting on the planning process. Construction is expected to begin in 2007 and finish in 2009.

For now though, there is a more important date in the diary of the LRSDC: tomorrow.

Ireland's soccer team take on Germany in a qualifier match for the 2008 European Championships in Stuttgart tomorrow evening, and up to 30,000 Irish soccer supporters will get a good look at the kind of development they might expect from our new stadium.

Many of these fans will, of course, have experienced the benefits of a modern stadium on a trip to a Premiership ground in England or while following Ireland abroad, but Saturday's match in Stuttgart will offer visitors the sight of a new, modernised product.

The last time Ireland played in Stuttgart was during the European Championships in 1988 when Jack Charlton's side pulled off a shock 1-0 victory over England.

A lot has changed since then; a young defender who Jack left at home in Dundalk that summer is now the Ireland manager, the cost of living in Ireland has caught up with and overtaken Germany, and the Neckarstadion is now the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion and has been completely renovated and modernised.

The Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion hosted six matches during this summer's World Cup, including the third-place playoff, and had to meet rigorous Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) requirements before the tournament.

This will be the first major match since the World Cup ended, less than two months ago, so it can justly boast to be one of the most up-to-date and technologically advanced of the new generation of stadia.

Siemens was awarded the contract for the IT hardware and network infrastructure at Stuttgart, supplying the access and ticketing system as well as the fire detection system and the electronic loudspeaker system.

"We were heavily involved with nine of the World Cup stadia in infrastructure and with the other three we looked after traffic management or communications. It depended on the situation; in some of the stadia there was complete renovation and in others they existed already. We supplied a turnkey solution for communication and access," says Thomas Brodocz, the managing director for Siemens' Project World Cup 2006.

"As far as the fan is concerned, the entrance is the point of contact with the technology. Our mass access software allows for flexibility depending on the event.

"So for league games or national qualifiers like Saturday's game, they use paper tickets with a barcode that can identify the individual ticket and it says whether it has been purchased in the proper manner or whether it should be rejected.

"However, during the World Cup for example, anti-hooligan measures were introduced with individual smart cards, which could hold background information such as name, date of birth, where the ticket was bought and so on.

"Once inside the stadium, the system can be changed so you can add on facilities such as parking, purchasing food or retail items, or marketing opportunities.

"The card itself with the chip only costs about €1 and the ticket is, of course, reusable, so it's not an expensive system."

Siemens' solution supports RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology so the access system can read and check the validity of tickets.

This prevents admission with forged tickets and also helps to stop touting and abuse of ticket sales by regional associations or clubs.

Brodocz estimates within five or 10 years, a smart card will be the norm rather than the exception.

However, after the fan is through the turnstile, the aim is to make the technology invisible, leaving punters to focus on the main event.

"Once the fan is inside the stadium, the technology is largely in the background. Our system allows for communication between police, fire service, traffic control and the central stadium control using a wireless LAN [ local area network] connection," says Brodocz.

"And in the past when you had between 30,000 and 70,000 people in the stadium taking photos on their phones and then sending messages to their friends, the network would break down. We have improved that, so that it won't happen.

"For the lighting in the past you might have floodlighting on four posts that cast a shadow as well as provided light. However, with the new system, the lighting is extended for 360 degrees and the shadow is reduced to zero."

By October of next year Lansdowne Road will be a building site and games are expected to be held at Croke Park. At the end of the qualification process, the Green Army will have been thoroughly spoilt, with at least four games at Croke Park and a trip to the magnificent Millennium Stadium in Cardiff to take on Wales; although the Olimpico stadium in San Marino (capacity 5,387) is likely to be a slightly more underwhelming experience.

Of course, if all goes well, a successful qualification campaign would mean at least three matches at the final tournament in Austria and Switzerland, where standards will have been raised even further.

The LRSDC is still at the preliminary design stage but it has confidence that the new Lansdowne will be able to incorporate all the developments possible to meet the expectations of a fan base gorged on foreign delights.

"The preliminary design is complete and we expect the planning process to be completed by the end of the year and construction to begin in January," says Colm Moran, project manager.

"We are working with Hok Sport which has worked on major projects such as Arsenal's new Emirates Stadium in north London, the City of Manchester stadium, host to the 2002 Commonwealth Games and Manchester City FC, and the Telstra stadium in Sydney, the principle stadium for the 2000 Olympics,

"We have also been to Germany to the home of Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirchen, a World Cup venue and to Portugal, where the 2004 European Championships were held.

"It's too early to comment on exact details, but there are several technological trends at the moment in stadia construction and we will ensure that the virtual local area network (VLAN), the digital backbone of the new stadium, will allow us to incorporate any of these facilities in the future.

"For example, there are IP-based [ internet protocol] telecommunication systems; voice over internet, wireless access, internet hotspot access.

"Then there are convention centre facilities, the kind of thing that Croke Park does Monday to Friday. We will need total data services to keep with new trends in this area.

"And then there are facilities such as the big screens, floodlights and so on. We need to make sure that we are ready for HDTV [ high-definition television] for the screens and the digital backbone gives us the basis to do all these things."

Barring any planning hiccups, development begins in earnest from next year and the pressure is on the LRSDC to deliver, especially after the Bertie Bowl fiasco and the costly collapse of the Éircom Park project. In the meantime, we can only hope that the Irish contingent come home on Sunday having marvelled at the impressive work the Germans have done on the stadium and robbed them of three points on the pitch.