Cagliari new venue plans secure key funding

Article posted by Coliseum, February 9^th, 2023

Image: Sportium

With the Regional Council of Sardinia (Italy) giving its nod to the 2023-2025 budget, key funding has also been secured in the form of €50m (£45m/$54m) for constructing a new stadium for the Serie B football club Cagliari Calcio.

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.

‘NOVA.news’ stated that the funding will be spread over four years – (€3m in 2023, €15m in 2024, €12m in 2025, and €20m in 2026). The Regional Council of Sardinia gave unanimous approval as regards constructing a new home arena for the Cagliari Calcio. The agreement was reached between the President of the Region, Christian Solinas, and the political party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy).

The Regional Council of Sardinia is the Legislative Assembly of the autonomous region of Sardinia (Italy). The Assembly was elected for the first time in 1949.

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.

The Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) is a national-conservative and Right-wing populist political party in Italy, the country’s largest after the 2022 Italian general election. The party is led by Giorgia Meloni, the incumbent Prime Minister of Italy.

‘NOVA.news’ further stated that the above agreement reached ensures that the new facility will be built to meet FIFA and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) benchmarks and is 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.

Nyon (Switzerland)-based the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, as well as Asian countries such as Israel, Cyprus and Armenia. The UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.

The 2032 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA EURO 2032 or simply EURO 2032, will be the 19^th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international football championship organized by the UEFA for the senior men’s national teams of its member-associations.

The above agreement also envisages building a new City (Cagliari) hospital and the new regional office hub to come up at the former Trieste-Stallaggio barracks.

The entire approval exercise was held in the form of a secret ballot (27 in favor, 25 against, one blank, and one blank ballot).

A debate held on the occasion left the former Mayor of Cagliari, Massimo Zedda, fuming, “The President of the Region, without involving the offices and the Regional Council, has gone ahead with the new stadium plans. The Municipality of Cagliari has also been given the short shrift. The agreement does not take into account the fact that so many unused buildings are there and is instead going ahead with occupying more land. Solinos is making important decisions as regards the development of Cagliari without keeping key authorities in the loop.”

Added Zedda, “We are talking about a project of one and a half billion euros. Solinos will thrust his decision down the Municipality of Cagliari throat before March 31st and the above decision has been taken flouting all rules.”

A decision has been taken on a new home for Cagliari after feet-dragging for 20 years and the new arena will hold in good stead the Italian island of Sardinia, the district of Sant’Elia and the City of Cagliari keeping in mind the 2032 UEFA show. Public cooperation will also be needed for the above development to come to fruition and the sustainability factor is crucial.

Several other political outfits opined that an “open discussion” should be held on the planned development and everything should be “transparent”. The political parties also opined that the new venue plans of Cagliari should not be a “drain on the pockets of taxpayers”.

Cagliari plans to build their new digs on the site where their former residence – the partially demolished Stadio Sant’Elia – stands.

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