The ambitious and controversial Feyenoord City stadium project on the banks of the Maas in Rotterdam has been canceled. That said general manager of Feyenoord Dennis te Kloese on Thursday afternoon at a hastily convened press conference. The football club would have liked the new stadium with 63,000 seats, “but that is not possible now,” said the director. It is too expensive. The club will focus on football.
Football will continue to take place in De Kuip, the atmospheric but outdated stadium in Rotterdam. That will have to be renovated, Te Kloese said, but it was not clear exactly what that renovation would look like.
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New toilets
It became clear, however, that a modest renovation was envisaged and not a large-scale renovation. Financial director Pieter Smorenburg gave an example: “We can look at all kinds of things, so we can currently offer 350 people a dinner, many a club in the right row is four times this.” New toilets were also mentioned.
At the end of last year, it was decided to have the new construction plans properly calculated. Feyenoord did not want the estimated cost of 441 million euros for the new stadium to be exceeded. That already seemed doubtful at the time, but the research shows that it is unfeasible, partly due to increased costs of building materials.
Feyenoord suffers financial damage now that the stadium plan has been scrapped, because an estimated 30 million euros for development costs must be paid back. If necessary, the club will do that, the director said during the press conference.
Emotions among supporters about the plans regularly ran high. Some of the supporters did not want to say goodbye to De Kuip, they fear that the club is financially enjoying the construction of a new stadium – so they are now getting their way. Another part was in favor of the new construction.