Valencia presents the Nou Mestalla after thirteen years of abandonment and unfulfilled promises

The skein of the new Valencia stadium is tangled.

Located on Avenida de Cortes Valencianas, one of the main access arteries to the city, the field began to rise in 2007 and came to a standstill in 2009 due to the so-called 'brick crisis'.

Since then, the club has not been able to find funding to finish it.

The concrete mass has been standing for thirteen years waiting for the machines to come in to wake it up.

The club has a new project, but the political authorities of the city do not believe it.

The case may end up in court and paralyze the works for another five years.

The current scenario confronts the club with the Generalitat and the Valencia City Council, which remain intransigent regarding the expiration, next July, of the Strategic Territorial Action (ATE), an urban plan validated by the Popular Party in 2012 that It helped the club, with a land reclassification included, to build its new stadium financed by the sale and subsequent commercial exploitation of the plots where the old Mestalla Coliseum is located.

The ATE indicated that the new stadium should be finished in 2021 and the old Mestalla demolished in 2023 to be able to build on the plots.

Since his arrival in 2014, Peter Lim has been missing deadlines and putting off city politicians, who since 2019 have been more belligerent.

That relationship has become more tense during the presidency of Anil Murthy, recently dismissed by Lim.

“I prefer to go, let them tell me what they want.

Always with a smile.

'Thank you thank you thank you'.

Then Germán Cabrera (the lawyer for Meriton, the parent company from which Lim runs his business in Spain) 'bang'.

We are going to take the Generalitat to trial”, Murthy said at a dinner with Valencian businessmen who would cost him his job after the recording and subsequent leak of his words to the press.

Lim's refusal to comply with the provisions and his strategy of buying time by presenting projects that did not respect what was agreed and did not provide any financial guarantee led the Generalitat to expire the ATE, which will expire next July.

Valencia's last move was to call a press conference on the bare concrete of the new stadium to ensure that its latest project complies with the provisions of the ATE before it expires.

Sean Bai, architect Mark Fenwick, CFO Inma Ibáñez and COO Christian Schneider spoke.

More information

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The new Mestalla will respect the capacity of 70,000 seats set by the ATE, but will start with 49,000, leaving the third ring free, which would be covered by tarps.

The reason is that attendance at Mestalla in the last 8 years has never exceeded that figure.

"There is nothing worse than an empty stadium," Schneider said.

However, he guaranteed that they are prepared to cover the 21,000 seats difference: · "They should not be an obstacle for the works to be blocked," assured the architect.

"It would seem an aberration to me if the project were to be knocked down," commented Inma Ibáñez, who defended that the project, which costs 115 million euros, is economically viable.

“It is backed by the 80 million euros from CVC, two bridge loans from Caixabank and Rights and Media Funding Limited for a value of 30 million,

Appearance of one of the stands of the New Mestalla.

Regarding the health of the foundations, the architect Fenwick, who has designed three stadiums in Qatar for the World Cup, quipped: “Look at the Colosseum in Rome, after 2,000 years it is still standing.

The concrete is great.

Valencia admits that, although the agreement with the administrations will be unlocked shortly, the change of stadium could not take place before the summer of 2025. The forecast is that once the works start, it will take 22 months for its completion.

The answer is on the roof of the Generalitat and Valencia City Council, but there another battlefield opens up.

The politicians, who are suspicious of Lim, are studying the new economic guarantees in detail and have already warned that they will not accept a stadium with less than 70,000 spectators.

Without these two factors, the ATE will expire in July and the club will be left without the urban benefits it proposes.

“From the club's side we don't want to prosecute the process.

The club has to defend its interests, but if, despite our willingness to reach an agreement, presenting a credible project from a technical and financial point of view, the Generalitat decides to expire the ATE, this would seem disproportionate and unjustified to us”, warned Bai.

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