just because the seatings positions were slightly bad).
A lot of the IOC (and probably FIFA) requirements seem silly. Pretty soon, we're going to see the Olympics go back and forth between LA and Paris just because they're the only cities that naturally have the required infrastructure, unless there's a change.
The stadium in question was the one for bicycle racing, it was built for the Pan-American games.
Right after those games, IOC decided to change the percentage of seats allowed behind pillars.
So they concluded the solution, instead of reducing amount of seats or something, was to demolish the entire stadium, and build a new one with the support pillars in new locations.
You are not looking at this from the right perspective. Nobody really cares about pillars and views, but a lot of people do care about construction money. Reasons will be found.
A lot of the IOC (and probably FIFA) requirements seem silly. Pretty soon, we're going to see the Olympics go back and forth between LA and Paris just because they're the only cities that naturally have the required infrastructure, unless there's a change.