Red tape-struck Roma venue plans move forward

Article posted by Coliseum, May 16^th, 2023

Image: Coliseum GSVA

The Serie A team A.S. Roma are progressing in their bid to build a new stadium after the Municipality of Rome gave the green light for the stadium to come up in the Pietralata neighborhood in Rome, Italy.

‘Football Italia’ stated that the functionaries of the Municipality of Rome met on May 9^th to work out details of A.S. Roma building their new home venue in the Pietralata neighborhood of Rome. The councilors gave their approval for the new facility with 33 votes in favor and three abstaining.

The A.S. Roma, commonly referred to as Roma, is a professional football club based in Rome, Italy. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma has participated in the top tier of Italian football for all of its existence, except for the 1951-1952 seasons.

The Stadio Olimpico is the largest sports facility in Rome, Italy, seating over 70,000 spectators. It is located within the Foro Italico sports complex, North of the City. The structure is owned by the Italian National Olympic Committee and it is used primarily for association football.

Rome (Italy)-based the Italian National Olympic Committee, founded in 1914 and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is responsible for the development and management of sports activity in Italy.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is a non-Governmental sports organization based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss Civil Code.

The A.S. Roma project encompasses the construction of a new stadium to host A.S. Roma home matches as well as other sporting events and concerts with the objective to make the stadium a kind of meeting point for the whole City of Rome.

The planned stadium will come up over 16 hectares of land in Pietralata, owned by the Roma Capitale, and the A.S. Roma has requested surface rights for up to 90 years, after which the infrastructure will be transferred to the Government agency Roma Capitale.

Earlier, in March 2021, the club’s American billionaire owner Thomas Daniel Friedkin had dropped the ambitious Tor de Valle project plan like a hot potato saying it was dogged by too much of “red tapism and political interferences”.

‘Football Italia’ further stated that also present at the session on May 9^th was the Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri, who seemed happy with Roma’s project, and averred, “Not a single euro of public money will be spent on the stadium. €528m will come from the private sector, the stadium will be avant-garde and a vast urban area will be regenerated.”

The ball is now in Roma’s court. The club need to draw up a final plan which they will then present to the Municipality of Rome before the sod-turning ceremony.

The final project will have to match various criteria laid out by the Municipality of Rome, including the possibility of giving at least 50 percent of possible attendees the chance to reach the stadium by public transport, bicycle or on foot.

The Giallorossi’s new stadium is expected to have a capacity of around 55,000, with the possibility of raising this to 62,000 for special events. Five thousand (5,500) seats would be dedicated to the VIP fans. Huge parking areas will come up with 10,000 spaces for mopeds and bicycles, and more than 4,000 spaces for cars.

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