How long will the once iconic Central Stadium behind Bežigrad continue to be Ljubljana’s shame? Joc Pečečnik wants to sell the building to the state
Soon it will be 20 years, which is
Slovenian national team
has visited the Central Stadium behind Bežigrad for the last time. It was August 2004, when the home team played Serbia and Montenegro in front of 6000 spectators. Nenad Jestrović put the visitors in front in front of the renowned referee Tom Henning Ovreb, and Nastja Čech scored eight minutes before the end of the match to tie the game 1:1.
Borut Mavric, Aleksander Knavs, Ermin Šiljak, Branko Ilić, Milenko Aćimović, Robert Koren and debutant Zlatko Dedić also played for the home team under Branko Oblak, while Nemanja Vidić, Mateja Kežman, Savo Milošević, Dejan Stanković and Danko Lazović proved their worth for the visitors. All of them have been retired from football for some time.
Central Stadium… The building behind Bežigrad
has been in a state of dismal decay for years
. The symbol of the first major Slovenian football successes has been overgrown by weeds, and Plečnik’s legacy is collapsing in on itself.
Hotel, clinic, underground garage…
Who is to blame for the deplorable state of the stadium, which has been home to Olimpija for many years, is a complex question with no easy answer. The fact is that the Central Stadium has been owned since 2007 by the Slovenian gambling magnate Joca Pečečnik, who once wanted to conquer Slovenian football. His project called Interblock (Pečečnik took over Ježica and gave it a new name) failed miserably and, above all, rather quickly, despite his ambitious plans.
Pečečnik’s idea of a glittering Bežigrad sports park has also (so far) failed rather miserably . Pečečnik wanted to build a brand new facility with many other associated facilities on the site of the Central Stadium. He had in mind a hotel, a clinic, an underground garage… He dreamt of a home that would proudly house the ruler of Slovenian club football. Today, Pečečnik has neither.
All well and good, but the construction machinery still hasn’t started rumbling. They have not been brought there yet, let alone lit. And there is no sign that things will change drastically for the better in the near future. For now, the stadium is being “renovated” mainly in the courts, where Pečečnik is going one time, and those who oppose the construction of the Bežigrad Sports Park another. As a result, the baker has a building permit once and not again. And so it has been for years. And so on, ad infinitum.
Nothing remains of their words
Now, Joc Pečečnik, one of the worst business investments of his career, has spoken out again, hoping that the stadium will be bought by the state. “Former Culture Minister Simoniti has made an offer that has a tail and a head. The offer was a small patch on the loss of my capital and 15 years of calamity. I did not sign the offer in the last week of the last government precisely because it would have been unethical before the change of government and would have been labelled hostile by the new government,“, said one of the richest Slovenians in an interview with Delo and shot a sharp arrow in the direction of the current government.
“For five years, the left has been banging on about how the stadium needs to be returned to its original state. Now they are in power and nothing is left of their words. I have sent a clear message to the Minister and the Prime Minister that I am ready to sell if the country wants to buy. Otherwise, I will terminate the building permit and implement the project on the basis of the final judgment.” If nothing else, there is at least hope. The hope that the Central Stadium behind Bežigrad will one day shine again in all its beauty.
Bežigrad💚 (You have to climb over the fence, but it’s worth it) pic.twitter.com/gnIBwMV0lF
– Miha Zupan (@MikeDjomba) November 12, 2022
This text was automatically translated using AI.News
#centralnistadionbežigrad
#jocpečečnik
Share
