Bensafrim, near Lagos is the preferred location for Match Algarve a massive football village to be built by Portuguese and Dutch entrepreneurs at a budgeted cost of €110 million.
With the blessing of the Bensafrim parish council and hoped for agreement from Lagos Council the project is expected to start in 2016.
However it was Lagos council that torpedoed the original plan, which footballing luminary Sven Goran Eriksson was rumoured to be fronting, but the consortium now has applied to the government to make this project a PIN (Project of National Importance) thereby side-stepping many of the local planning rules and considerations.
In an interview with Correio da Manhã, Lagos’s mayor Joaquina Matos said that the project will have “the council’s full support.”
The centre has been in the planning stage for years but only now have the promoters released details on a new website.
The centre aims to be the largest and best equipped in Europe and offer teams training and relaxation facilities in the benign Portuguese climate. The plan is for eight playing fields for football and rugby, a running track, tennis courts, a medical centre, a gymnasium and a spa plus the inevitable raft of villas, swimming pools, shops and a 120-room five-star hotel.
The plan has been promoted by Portuguese and Dutch developers who have owned the 600 hectare Herdade Corte do Bispo since 1998. The companies involved are Carvoeiro Branco, Imca Group Bv, and Pluis Participaties Bv.
An environmental impact assessment will make an interesting read and whether the project will get the go-ahead remains to be seen. The Algarve has many large projects in the pipeline and the recent economic crisis has seen a relaxation of evironmental rules by government, particularly from previous Minster for the Economy Álvaro Santos Pereira whose acceleration of planning permissions for big schemes under the imperative of 'more local jobs' caused dismay from many environmental and local residents associations.
See: Cascade Resort
Match Algarve
