Major players part of Cagliari venue plans

Article posted by Coliseum, March 16^th, 2023

Image: Sportium

The Serie B club Cagliari Calcio (Italy) has announced agreements with some of the partners who support it in the evolution of the project for their new stadium.

‘Archysport’ stated that the above is another decisive step coupled with the progress in administrative matters and soon the City Council will decide on the confirmation of the public interest of the work and the consequent convening of the decision-making Conference of Services and the subsequent tender floating exercise.

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.

‘Archysport’ further stated that the Cagliari new home arena will be one of the most futuristic stadia in Italy which will also boast a wellness area.

Enthused Stefano Melis, Business and Media Director of Cagliari Calcio, “We are happy to announce that we have struck deals with two leading international companies – Accor (French hospitality company) and the US-based management consulting services Snow Group. It is a matter of great pride for us and bears testimony to the fact that how committed the club is in building its new home venue. We want the new digs of Cagliari to be a landmark for the City of Cagliari.”

Remarked Jacopo Palermo, head honcho of the Italy-based industrial holding company Costim Group, “As Cagliari Calcio’s partner in this ambitious project, we are elated that major players in the hospitality, leisure and wellness sector are all involved to bring the development to fruition. The paradigm, which as developers we have adopted in our business model, gives import on the sustainability factor and will ensure that the new stadium is environmental, social and governance (ESG)-compliant and offer fans a fantabulous experience. Along with Cagliari Calcio, we will make their new home facility a destination unto itself.”

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.

Maintained Mattias Innocenti, Senior Director Development of Accor (Southern Europe), a world leading group in the hospitality sector which offers services in over 110 countries with 5,400 facilities, 10,000 dining spaces, wellness services, and flexible workspaces, “We are very proud that the Mövenpick hotel is part of this very prestigious project and that the hotel-inside-the-stadium concept will be the first of its kind in Italy. It will indeed be the talking point of the City. The Cagliari Calcio should be lauded for placing their trust in the Mövenpick brand and on our partner Amapa, who will operate the new stadium.”

Accor includes more than 40 hotel brands, from luxury to economy, as well as Lifestyle with Ennismore, and has always been committed to positive action in terms of business ethics and integrity, responsible tourism, sustainable development, community awareness, diversity, and inclusion.

Mövenpick is part of Accor and was created in 1948 in Switzerland by Ueli Prager, creating a restaurant concept based on the quality of life with attention to details. With over 110 hotels and resorts worldwide, with another 50 planned by 2025, Mövenpick has been named by Green Globe as the world’s most sustainable hotel company since the year 2017.

A wellness project will also be a part of the overall scheme of things following an agreement that Cagliari and Costim have reached with the bbspa_Group (wellness and spa) and the Snow Group to create an ‘Urban Destination SPA’ for the entire City, making wellness not a weekend concept but an everyday concept.

The bbspa_Group has conducted a study to assess how the ‘SPA’ concept will fit into the stadium scheme of things. The management of the SPA, on the other hand, will be entrusted to the Snow Group Italia, the Italian branch of the French parent company which manages over 60 SPAs in Europe.

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.

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