Spoločnosť s.r.o.
Ulica 17, 987 65 Mesto
09 / 876 54 321 0905 123 456
info@spolocnost.sk www.spolocnost.sk
Ulica 17, 987 65 Mesto
09 / 876 54 321 0905 123 456
info@spolocnost.sk www.spolocnost.sk
(published in the Slovak daily Sport)
UEFA may grant an exception to a specific structural requirement regarding stadium category, for instance, if fulfilling the criterion would force a club to play its home matches on the territory of another member association. This excerpt from Article 13.02 of the UEFA Europa League Regulations for the 2014/15 season corrects the widespread belief that Slovan cannot play its home matches outside Slovakia. UEFA would certainly prefer Žilina, but if, for any reason—especially a lack of agreement between clubs—it was not possible to host matches there, UEFA would not reject the idea of Slovan playing its home games, say, in Prague.
Statements referring to such a scenario as a disgrace not only for Slovan or Bratislava but for “the entire state and its institutions” (Šport, 9 September) should be made with caution. The entire discussion about football infrastructure needs to be informed and objective. This topic has persisted for over a decade. Sports and economic journalists tend to write about stadiums in vastly different ways. They usually agree that the construction or renovation of stadiums should be primarily the responsibility of club owners and local or regional governments. But is it right to reach into the taxpayer’s pocket through the national budget?
The answers to the following questions will vary widely depending on whether the respondent is a sports fan or where they live: “Was it, and is it, in the public interest for the Slovak national team to be able to play matches on Slovak soil at a stadium that meets the required standards? Does that also apply to Slovan? If at least one compliant stadium already exists (Žilina) and another is under construction (Trnava), is there still a need for a larger one with a capacity over 20,000? Should 45 million euros have gone to regional stadiums?” Would a "non-fan" answer yes to at least three of these?
In 2006 and 2011, I co-authored two government documents regarding the construction of the National Football Stadium. Both called for a competitive process to select the location, including an architectural competition, with the main criterion being cost to the taxpayer. Two other proposals skipped location tenders altogether, and now we’ll never know what price a project competition might have yielded. At least let’s compare the difference—today’s cost of 27 million euros is lower than the approximately 70 million euros projected for the National Stadium during the first Fico government.
Tens of millions—sometimes just shy of that—seem to hover over Slovak sport a little too frequently. Most recently, there was a nearly equivalent gap between two construction bids for regional stadiums. Let’s leave the legal nuances to the courts and ignore the “obligatory” defense from the Slovak Football Association that the public procurement law was followed.
The author contributed to the honest debate in this very space on July 16, 2013: “It is essential to organize a tender for each location, where the key criterion will be the requested amount of state funding.”
Taxpayers would have contributed less. The savings could have been used, for example, to support talented youth. But things turned out differently. In the words of a classic: “We wanted to do it the best way—and it ended up like always…”