Beiso says on Viewpoint Lathbury ‘excellent’ site for stadium

The Gibraltar FA and UEFA believe that Lathbury “is an excellent site” for a football national stadium.

The assessment of the location was discussed last night by GFA Secretary General Dennis Beiso during the Viewpoint programme on GBC.

Mr Beiso said the association wanted and would welcome Gibraltar’s national team in action in its own national stadium in this location but it still needed the MOD to release some areas of land, as without this “the project simply is not viable.”

UEFA, which will 100% finance a new stadium, has granted the GFA permission to go below the 8,000-stadium capacity normally required and Mr Beiso predicted the capacity will be between four to five thousand.

During the interview, Mr Beiso spoke to presenter Jonathan Scott, about the previous choice of for the stadium at Europa Point.

He said the GFA “didn’t have backing from the majority of the community which is perfectly fine, understandable, we have accepted that and moved on.”

In addition, he said the GFA are “conscience of the fact that we tried to perhaps railroad the project through on the back of UEFA membership, when we should have done what we are doing now which is to sit down with the various interest groups and consult the community on what it is that they want to see.”

If the Lathbury location does not get community backing Mr Beiso said he was not sure if there was another viable option on the Rock for a national stadium.

He also reiterated UEFAs standing regarding the redeveloping of the Victoria Stadium which includes not contributing financially to the project and its opinion that the footprint of the stadium is not workable.

A stadium where the qualifiers in September will be played still needs to be worked out, he said.