Agreement reached on new national football stadium
The new football stadium planned for Heizel will not be equipped to host athletics events. Partners in the concern hope to build a new athletics venue in Brussels
The Memorial Van Damme will seek a new home in Brussels
The Memorial Van Damme, Belgium’s premier athletics event, will not therefore be accommodated in the new stadium. Until 2020, the annual event can remain at the King Baudouin stadium (pictured), also located at Heizel. The King Baudouin stadium is due after that date to be demolished to make way for the new Neo shopping and leisure complex. All parties agreed that a new stadium for athletics needs to be planned for Brussels.
According to Van Damme organiser Wilfried Meert, the event will stay in Brussels. “We’re extremely happy that our demand for an athletic stadium to be retained has been heard,” he said. “Football and athletics have worked together constructively in this matter.”
The new stadium will be open air and host 31 programmed matches a year as well as other events. For the rest of the year, RSC Anderlecht has shown some interest in moving to the new stadium, and CEO Roger Van Der Stock took part in the talks. The club intends to wait for the publication of a feasibility study in April next year before making any firm commitment. The planned extensions to the club’s ground at Park Astrid in Anderlecht will, in the meantime, go ahead.
Flemish minister-president Kris Peeters said he was “happy that common ground had been found between football and athletics”. The Flemish government is heavily involved in preparations for the new stadium as it is located on the part of Heizel that sits in the Flemish municipality of Grimbergen.
The government had previously expressed a preference for a single stadium combining football and an athletics track – an option rejected from the outset on the grounds of cost. The new stadium will cost an estimated €314 million, to be financed entirely by the private sector.
