Romanian gov't commitments under EURO 2020 bid, 95pct met

All the commitments of the Romanian government under the country's bid to host matches of the UEFA EURO 2020 European Football Championship are 95 percent met, retired footballer Gica Popescu, honorary adviser to the prime minister, said on Wednesday. "We are announcing having fulfilled another objective committed to in the application file by the Romanian Government for the co-organisation of the 2020 European Football Championship. We are announcing the opening of 150 life-size sports facilities of large size. In our bid, we have committed ourselves to building 400 small-sized sports fields, but after a consultation with the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) we came to the conclusion that it is important for the development of football in our country to build 150 normal-sized fields. We made a list together with the FRF taking into account the programme for the development of football in Romania conducted by the federation. We made 175 requests to the places that were chosen to build these fields: of the 175 we received 135 documentations, of which 92 are ok. We hope that in the period immediately ahead the remaining documentations are completed and gaps are filled," Popescu told a joint news conference on Wednesday with Minister of Regional Development Daniel Suciu. He added that the towns and cities that failed to submit all the documents related to the governmental requests will have to submit land registry excerpts and make available 13 thousand square meters, the area needed for the construction of such a sports facility. "In addition to the 150 life-sized fields that I hope will be used by the federation in this development programme that we have to carry out also inquired for 125 small-sized facilities that we want to develop in schools. Of the 125 inquiries, we received a positive response from 97 locations, 71 of which are okay, we hope the remainder will be completed in the period immediately ahead. Also provided for in the same programme are seven fields for the visually impaired at the request of FRF, three of which were ok, while the other three will not be completed because the requested ones did not want to build the fields," said Popescu. He added that he is convinced that the project will help with boosting football performance. "I am convinced that this program with 150 life-sized fields will help enormously performance in our country and FRF will use them in the development programme the best it can, so that as a result of this programme we will have as many players as possible who will join the national teams. For that purpose, I, the coordinator of the EURO 2020 project, would like to let you know that Romania's governmental commitments in its bid have been met 95 percent," Popescu said. He added that there was only one more objective to be met, namely the modernisation of the Baneasa Airport. The paperwork has been uploaded to the SICAP on-line procurement platform and offerings have been invited, he added. "When this objective is met, I tell you that 100 percent of all the commitments under the EURO 2020 project will be met," concluded Popescu. Minister of Regional Development Daniel Suciu made a series of clarifications regarding the programme for the construction of sports facilities. "The estimated costs for the 400 sports grounds - 150 large and 100 small-sized - are 298 million euros, practically 300 million euros is the budget effort. The execution time for the large-sized ground is nine months, as pledged under the specifications, and six months for the small-sized sports ground. As soon as we centralise the next round of proposals and requests we have released we will organise the next tenders by regions, so that most of these grounds may be operational in 2020,' the minister said. A statement issued by the Development Ministry indicates that the National Investment Corporation (CNI) will handle the 400 sports grounds. The programme comprises three standard projects to be implemented: type 1, type 2 and type 2 for the visually impaired. "The estimated costs of a type 1 sports ground is 1.7 million euros; a type 2 ground would take 0.40 million euros to build, while a sports ground for the visually impaired will entail costs of 57,500 euros," according to the statement. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)