CSKA Sofia football club had started work on the construction of a new club stadium, CSKA’s president Dimitar Borissov told Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily on October 14 2009.
The new sport facility will replace the club’s current pitch, the Bulgarian Army stadium in the Borissova Gradina park.
Preliminary calculations made by the CSKA owner have shown that the new stadium, with a capacity between 25 000 and 30 000 seats, could cost up to 50 million euro. It will have to be ready for the 2011/2012 season.
“We have found financing for the project,” Borissov said. The idea was that the the new venue would also include a medical centre, cinema halls and shopping facilities, although current legislation bans anything other than sport facilities to be built in parks and green areas.
“The project will happen only if the authorities allow us,” Borissov said. Of more immediate concern for CSKA was paying all of its debts to the state, which owns the club’s current stadium, the training ground in Pancharevo borough as well as the Cherveno Zname sport complex near Tsarigradsko Chaussee Boulevard.
CSKA’s debt is about 1.6 million leva, overdue leases to the Sports Ministry, which has been the subject of numerous complaints from CSKA’s arch rivals Levski Sofia, who claimed that CSKA was getting preferential treatment from authorities. On October 7, Sports Minister Svilen Neikov gave CSKA 10 days to begin paying its debts or face legal action.
The solution offered by CSKA was for the Sofia city hall to transfer the money it owed Titan refuse collection company, which owns CSKA, to the Sports Ministry. Although Neikov spoke in favour of the proposal, no transfer has been made just yet.
Once CSKA clears its debt, then it could go ahead with its plans to get the facilities it uses on concession. If this happened, Borissov said that construction of the new stadium could start as early as the spring of 2010.