Cagliari ode to club legend Gigi Riva

Article posted by Coliseum, March 29^th, 2023

Image: Sportium

The Serie B club Cagliari Calcio (Italy) planned home venue will be name after the Italian national team legend Gigi Riva.

‘L’UNIONE SARDA.it’ stated that to this end, the Cagliari City Council has unanimously approved a motion presented by the Mayor of Cagliari Paolo Truzzu that the Cagliari new venue be named after Riva.

Cagliari Calcio, commonly referred to as Cagliari, is an Italian football club based in Cagliari, Sardinia (Italy). In the 2022-2023 seasons, they compete in Serie B. As of 2021-2022, the team is temporarily playing their home games at the 16,416-seat Unipol Domus, adjacent to their future new stadium site.

The 16,416-capacity Unipol Domus is a football stadium in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Built in 2017 as the Sardegna Arena, it has been hosting Cagliari Calcio football matches from 2017-2018, since the Cagliari earlier home the 16,000-capacity Stadio Sant’Elia was closed and partially demolished in order to build a new stadium for the Cagliari.

Cagliari hopes that the new stadium which will initially boast a capacity of 25,000 gets constructed over a timespan of 25 months in time for the 2025-2026 seasons.

The new facility will be built to meet FIFA and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) benchmarks and will be in a position to stage global soccer matchups. Plans are also being drawn out to propose the planned arena as a host venue for the 2032 UEFA European Championship.

Luigi ‘Gigi’ Riva is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a centre-forward. Considered to be one of the best players of his generation, as well as one of the greatest strikers of all time, Riva enjoyed a remarkable scoring record for Cagliari, thanks to his composure in front of goal, powerful left foot and aerial ability, his speed, strength and eye for goal. Riva helped Cagliari achieve promotion to the Italian top-flight for the first time in 1964, and later led the club to their only Serie A title in 1969-1970.

‘L’UNIONE SARDA.it’ further stated that Mayor Truzzu who put forward the proposal received all 29 votes in favor and there were no abstentions. Before putting forward the proposal, Truzzu sought approval on the same from 78-year-old Riva.

Maintained Marino Bartoletti, eminent Italian journalist and writer, who is also an authority on sports-related issues, “The decision to name Cagliari home after soccer legend Gigi Riva is a welcome development. It will be dedicated to the shining star of Sardinian football and certainly also to one of the most legendary figures of Italian football. In Italy, a person is honored not when he/she is in action (read in this case the pitch) but after he/she hangs up the boots. Gigi is a Sardinian in the true sense of the term.”

The Cagliari new home arena will be one of the most futuristic stadia in Italy which will also boast a wellness area. A 122-room hotel will also come up inside the stadium as part of the project under the hospitality company Mövenpick and a conference center will be set up inside the hotel with Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) facilities. The hotel will either be sea-facing or pitch-facing and will boast a spectacular rooftop armed with bar, restaurant, swimming pool, and a sweeping view of the Cagliari coast and the pitch.

Cagliari was relegated from Serie A last season and currently sits sixth in the second division.

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