There’s nothing like a global sporting event to kick a country’s infrastructural development initiatives into overdrive. We’ve seen it at home just before the 2010 Fifa World Cup, in London with the 2012 Olympics and we’re currently seeing it in Qatar for Fifa’s next World Cup.

Here are FootballsTopTen’s ten most expensive stadiums ever built… if you think about it, they’re our way of bragging about how great we think we are.

Wembley Stadium, United Kingdom $1.2 billion

Estadio Nacional Manne Garrincha, Brazil $900 million

Cape Town Stadium, South Africa $600 million

Emirates Stadium, United Kingdom $570 million

Aviva Stadium, Ireland $570 million

Santiago Bernabeau, Spain $550 million

Arena De Sao Paulo, Brazil $500 million

Allianz Arena, Germany $470 million

Moses Mabhida Stadium, South Africa $450 million

FNB Stadium, South Africa$440 million

We South Africans take our sport pretty seriously, $1.49 billion seriously, and that’s not even all of them.