Our fans lit candles to writte "Goodbye Temple" on the last stand to go down... the place for standing fans where our ultras watched the games from...
The football ground will be able to host 32000 spectators. The stands will be covered but the playing field will be open. 2000 underground parking spaces will offer easier access to the stadium and the commercial complex staged in its premises. A closed Basketball Stadium able to host 8000 fans will be the new home of the AEK Basketball Club. Smaller Basketball, Volleyball and various other sports stadiums (one with 1816 seats and one with 420 seats) will be built under the football field! AEK will be able to use a small hotel able to provide rooms to 60 people in order to host opponent squads. The AEK museum and Hall of Fame will be in an area reaching 600 m2, the conference center will be 640 m2 and the AEK sports shop will be 240 m2. I was really surprised to hear that a big area (800 m2 ) is created, where AEK fans can gather and watch Live AEK games on a video wall! A pool is in the plans, but the size 25m or 50m was was not in the information I read yet. So we cannot yet tell if AEK can also create a Water Polo team alongside the swimming and diving teams already in plans. I would have to be emotionally torn between Vouliagmeni, the team I once played for and my beloved AEK! Nevertheless AEK is moving towards better sporting times. The commercial complex will have a cinema with 8 screens, a bowling alley, a gym, many restaurants and shops. Of course, the main concern is the interest shown by companies to take advantage of the business opportunities provided. It might mean, higher insurance charges by insurance companies and some fear of trouble generated by all the bad situations connected with some of the sports hosted in the Arena, namely football and basketball.
Few questions CFC built a new stand in the 70's...well started to anyway.The East stand simply ahd to be built as the old one was...well...falling down shall we say.Cost overruns and strikes coupled with thatcheromics financially ruined the club as the though of geting insurance to cover any of these events never occured to anyone. Then the steel workers went on strike to sympatise with the coal workers union that Thatcher was trying to bust.Stand was put on hold.But the loans still had to be repaid.So we were paying for something we didn't have and the capacity was reduced considerably. In the long run it financially ruined the club and as a result the best players had to be sold to gain income-which led to relegation which led to even more reduced income which led to selling of good players to gain income which led to....see where i'm going here? Anyway... What safe guards are they taking to secure the debt? Who is paying for the ground? What is being used as collateral?the ground itself? How long will the debt be for? How much will have to be paid back each year? What capacity will have to be met each home game to break even? What happens if they don't get into Europe?
There is a sports complex in my town (actually, at the moment, it's just a two-tiered driving range) that is being massively expanded, and one of the major buildings going up is a doubledecker ice rink. That's right - one full-size hockey rink built on top of another full-size hockey rink. I thought that was nuts. But this, this is nuts. Sounds cool.
Yes... The financial part of it is a huge problem. I too hope that the club planned things carefully before embarking on this project. As you can see there are many satelite businesses that are going to push eachothers profitability with the whole project. However, Clanblue, I do share with you the questions and the agony you slightly touched... because we could be talking for days on these issues. On theother hand we would not have all available data that would allow us to judge with good chances of success And to tell you the truth the financial data of the project are less accessible from the public than they should. Of course it is not a public, it is a private project so... We'll see Just keep in mind that in Greece AEK and all the other big teams have some help from the state also on the grounds of promoting sport etc... Wrong up to a point, usefull regarding other aspects as Amature Local Clubs who help people have access to sport facilities...
AEK OLE!!!! We'll miss the Nikos Gomas but the new stadium is going to be wonderful. I can't wait to see it up close and pesonal. AEKARA, OMADARA!
Take a short virtual tour (only if you have a fast connection, the size of the .mpg is 6,7 MB! ) http://www.anaparastasis.com/site/pe-index----.htm press on the link and chose "Galery Videos" from sowhere in the middle of the page then the video should be down on the left
Of course the new Arena has to be built first for us to be happy about it... But thanks... and hope Panathinaikos have their own new stadium soon. They surelly need it... --- The Early Bird Gets the Worm, but the Second Mouse Gets the Cheese! http://forums.phantis.com/sports/