It is not only athletes who compete in sport. Off the field, competition can emerge in professional places, for example among architects.
In August 2024, architecture firms Populous and Oualalou + Choi unveiled their joint design for Grand Stade Hassan II. The soccer stadium in Casablanca, Morocco, is set to be the largest football stadium in the world, with capacity for 115,000 people.
The following month, Foster + Partners was appointed by Manchester United to develop a masterplan for the Old Trafford Stadium District, in the north of England. When the British firm revealed its design in March 2025, online commentators rushed to their keyboards: Manchester United’s new stadium, it seemed, had much in common with its counterpart in Casablanca.
Grand Stade Hassan II and the New (Old) Trafford Stadium, both initially slated for completion about 2030, share a defining feature: a tent-like covering that stretches over their respective core structures.
Questions about copying and similarity were soon posed in the media. However, where copyright is concerned, substantial similarities between expressions are considered infringement but conceptual similarities are not.
International protection of original architectural works
Subject to a sufficient level of originality, stadiums are architectural works and, as such, included in Article 2 of the Berne Convention. Adopted in 1886, the convention deals with the protection of works and the rights of their creators, providing authors, musicians, poets, painters and more with the means to control how their works are used, as well as by whom and on what terms. The work of architects is listed as part of “literary and artistic works” protected under Berne.
Morocco and the United Kingdom are contracting parties to the Berne Convention, whose national treatment principle, set out in Article 5(1), requires that each member state afford authors from other member states the same copyright protection it grants to its own nationals.
Therefore, and since architectural works are also expressly protected under the national laws of each country – the Moroccan Law on Copyright and Related Rights and the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of the UK – any architectural work considered an original copyrighted work in Morocco shall also be deemed so in the UK, and vice versa.
Can functional elements of an architectural design be copyrighted?
Architectural copyright protects only the original expression. Since architectural works are also functional in nature – stadiums are designed to gather fans and host games – it is important to note that copyright protects the form but not the function, which is similar for any architectural work or sports venue.
Similarities, therefore, also arise from the range of technical specifications and structural constraints inherent to architecture, since even the most unique design must still be built according to architectural principles, such as foundation, walls, roof, doors and windows etc.
In short, courts have taken into account that the originality or the artistic freedom of architectural works is limited due to the physics and functionalities of the building, restricting how original some works can be.
With these constraints, the budget restrictions imposed by clients and regulations, finding and giving form to a truly original expression of an architectural idea is no simple task.
For those reasons, the apparent repetition of architectural concepts in stadium design is more common than it might be in other industries. Or, rather, it is more difficult to establish originality and therefore avoid infringement.
Drawing the line between inspiration and copying in architectural works
This principle is illustrated by two landmark cases in the United Kingdom. In Jones v. London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the claimant architect sued for copyright infringement, alleging that his initial design had been copied without permission or payment.
The court found a critical difference between copying a style or idea and copying its actual expression, leading it to reject the claim.
The key principle drawn upon was that architects are permitted to adapt an idea provided that the copyright-protected work itself is not copied. In other words, architectural concepts and ideas may be developed freely but the specific expression of those ideas is not allowed to be copied.
In Pearce v. Ove Arup Partnership Ltd, the claimant produced detailed drawings and plans for a town hall in the London Docklands area as part of his diploma at the city’s Architectural Association.
The claimant alleged that Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas had obtained copies of his plans and used them to inform the design of the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, built between 1990 and 1993. His case rested on two pillars: that the defendants had an opportunity to copy his plans and that there were remarkable similarities between these and the Kunsthal drawings.
The claim was dismissed. The court found that the Kunsthal was the independent and creative work of Koolhaas, and that the alleged similarities were insufficient.
The court also noted that architects are often constrained in their design choices and that similarities between two buildings therefore carry no evidentiary weight; shared architectural constraints will naturally produce comparable outcomes across works of entirely separate origin.
Two differing stadium designs: tent-like but poles apart
With these cases in mind, it becomes easier to view Grand Stade Hassan II and the Old Trafford Stadium District through the prism of architectural copyright.
When comparing the two stadiums, it is evident that, aside from features dictated by the purpose of these constructions as stadiums and the meeting of requirements imposed by their function, there are no elements of the creative structures that have been directly copied or are substantially similar.
The tent as a concept belongs to no one
With its vast footprint, Grand Stade Hassan II is designed to feel grand and deeply traditional. Inspired by low-slung Moroccan tents, its large roof is spread like fabric over the stadium, evoking the feeling of a monumental desert space.
The New Trafford Stadium, by contrast, looks markedly more modern. Its enormous canopy roof covers the stadium like a tall tent, supported by masts that help the structure to feel light, high-tech and strikingly vertical.
Cultural expression in the stadiums’ architectural designs
A stadium is a vast canvas that can express both public and personal identity. Alongside facilitating incredible sporting moments and fanning the flames of fandom, it can also exist as a public space removed from any sporting context. Some stadiums might even be called public art.
Grand Stade Hassan II and the New Trafford Stadium are expressions of both architectural authorship and the cultural identity of a nation and club, and their designers are well aware of the meaning embedded in these structures.
Norman Foster, founder of Foster + Partners, was keen to stress that the NewTrafford Stadium Dis is “not a fortress surrounded by a sea of cars”, alluding to the design of many traditional soccer stadiums. Instead, he envisions it as an open environment sheltered beneath an umbrella. The three supporting masts reference the trident on Manchester United’s badge.
The Moroccan stadium carries an entirely different cultural weight. Grand Stade Hassan II is inspired by moussem, a traditional annual festival that takes place in Morocco and north-west Africa. As the lead architect, Oualalou + Choi’s Tarik Oualalou, explained, the stadium is rooted in “ancient and primordial figures: the moussem, the tent, and the garden, as well as the topography and landscapes of Morocco”.
These concepts are reflected in two distinctly different expressions. The idea-expression dichotomy applies here just as it does in any copyright context: while the specific original expression of an idea can be protected, the notion of evoking a tent through an architectural form cannot. The tent as a concept belongs to no one.
About the author
Mariam Aroian is a researcher in intellectual property law and holds an LL.M. in Intellectual Property and Technology Law from the National University of Singapore. She has published on intellectual property, cultural rights, and art law, focusing on how these concepts evolve in response to modern technologies and the development of artificial intelligence.
