UD Almería’s ambitious Sports City plans

Article posted by Coliseum, February 17^th, 2025

Image: UD Almeria

Spanish second division football club UD Almería has unveiled details of the Sports City complex it is planning to build.

UD Almeria said the sports city will be built in the El Toyo area of the city on a 132,000 square metres plot, and with an investment of €13 million.

The club said there will be up to eight football pitches, including a covered stadium for just over 3,500 spectators.

Other sports facilities such as a large gym will be constructed, along with offices and two accommodation buildings with rooms for the first team and another for the Academy.

Unión Deportiva Almería is a Spanish professional football club based in Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. The club currently plays in the Segunda División and plays their home games at the 17,400-seat capacity UD Almería Stadium.

UDA Managing Director Mohamed El Assy said, “It’s the most ambitious project that Turki Alalshikh planned when he acquired the Club and it will be top-class in Europe.”

The CEO also stressed that it will be a legacy of the Saudi minister and the Club for the entire city and province of Almería and also highlighted what it will entail not only on a sporting level but also economically since, as he explained, “Many football stars will surely emerge.”

Mr El Assy said that without the huge effort and total commitment of Turki Alalshikh it would have been impossible to carry out a project on the scale conceived.

He expressed his heartfelt gratitude for the City Council, its councillors and employees, with a special mention to Mayoress María del Mar Vázquez for her unconditional support of the project to move forward.

She said, “I’d like to once again thank Unión Deportiva Almería, its President Turki Alalshikh, Managing Director Mohamed El Assy and the entire football team for their full commitment to linking with our City and their willingness to continue making it the setting for ambitious future projects.

“The infrastructure for the future will expand the training base of our Sports Complex model and that will allow, in the medium term, athletes of the highest professional level grow.

“In order to promote its development and once it’s been verified that all the previous conditions of job creation capacity and level of investment are met, at the City Council we’re going to launch for the first time the Project Accelerator Unit to expedite the administrative processing of the project to the maximum.”

The project will be taken to the plenary session of the council in February.

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