A new sports complex is to be built next to the Parque das Cidades ‘Estádio Algarve’ football ground on the Loulé-Faro border at a cost of over €1 million.
Legally, the land is a grey area, shared by the two councils which also divide the cost of subsidising the existing football ground, built for the 2004 European Cup and widely recognised as one of the Algarve’s most outstanding white elephants.
In 2014, more than ten years after the opening of the Estádio Algarve, the presidents of the two municipalities admitted that the stadium is a major financial burden but still claimed it was no 'white elephant.'
The ratepayers of Faro and Loulé have been subsiding the stadium by €30,000-a-month for at least 12 years, a figure that would be “between €70,000 and €100,000 a month, if events were not held there,” according to Faro mayor Rogério Bacalhau.
Loulé’s Vítor Aleixo claimed the amount funded by his ratepayers "is nothing extraordinary."
The councils, in their infinite wisdom and in the happy position of always spending other people’s money, therefore have decided to build a sports complex in this isolated area, having already awarded the building contract to Opway Engineering which will send in an invoice for €1,159,000.
The sports complex will have two full-size football pitches, even though the Estádio Algarve is within a stone’s throw, and a training ground, all surrounded by a sturdy fence.
Loulé and Faro council mayors say they intend “to enter the sports training market as the Algarve climate is good throughout most of the year,” claiming there is a growing interest from foreign teams, especially from Northern Europe, to train here to keep their professional teams in tip-top condition.
Again, we witness local councils involving themselves in the private business sector, having learnt nothing from history and embarking on another vanity project in the middle of nowhere.
On the plus side, there is plenty of parking.
