The province of Valencia will need 20 million euros to recover the 75 football fields affected by DANA, confirmed Salvador Gomar, president of the Valencian Community Football Federation. Destroyed playing fields, full of mud, drifting objects and cars, countless stranded cars were carpets of artificial grass.
This is how Salvador Gomar explains it: “We are collecting data because some are devastated and others only need minimal repairs. I estimate that recovering the twenty fields that are devastated will cost 400,000 euros each. I get an average of 200,000 euros per field. The repairs will cost about 20 million euros and I will fall short. 20,000 licenses have been affected.”
“We are collecting data because some are devastated and others only need minimal repairs.”
“Bugarra is totally destroyed. Alfafar is a piece of land right now, they are using it to dump debris and broken cars. The two Paiporta fields too,” reflects Gomar, who in turn points out: “I’m only talking about fields, if we count whether they have to fix the stands, the surroundings, the lights…”.
Spanish football has decided to create a crisis committee made up of the RFEF, LaLiga, Liga F, the footballers’ union AFE, the Valencian Football Federation and the Castilla La Mancha Football Federation to analyze the damage to the sports infrastructure where practice this sport, collaborate in its reconstruction and provide all possible support (material and personal) in this area.
The fields are municipal in 99% of the cases”
“The fields are municipal in 99% of the cases. From the federation we have promoted different aid and we are within the crisis committee in which there is a recovery plan. Between this and the subsidies from the Spanish government and those from, I imagine, the Valencian government, everything will be covered. It is not an issue that can be solved tomorrow,” says Gomar.
The president analyzes that all this will depend on the priorities of the city councils that first, as it cannot be otherwise, have to make an investment in recovering their streets, highways and devastated areas. “When the homes are in good condition and when the businesses start to operate, I think the sports infrastructure will come. “I don’t know how to establish a time, I think that in six or eight months they will begin to be done.”
The mind is set on giving optimism and hope to start again”
After two days without football, the Valencian federation is already focused on resuming the territorial leagues. “The first days were chaos. We called asking about ours, we have seven affected workers and everyone is helping and collaborating. Starting Monday we changed the chip and our mind is set on giving optimism and hope to start again,” explains Gomar.
“I really liked the images of the kids playing soccer in the mud because it shows the desire they have to play and go out. We are compiling what is missing in all the facilities, talking to the clubs and next week we will start. We are preparing the start, except in the affected sites, which will still take a while,” he points out.
One of the solutions being considered by the federation is for the affected clubs to play in other facilities and play entire days on the same field. “If it is a group of 16, between Saturday and Sunday they play the entire day. It depends on the group and category. Grassroots football ended in May, but we are going to give them a date to recover and we will move the other to the last week,” he says.
“Sometimes you go blindly, with great caution and fear of calling someone and that someone has lost a family member. In some clubs there are missing people and the occasional deceased,” he reflects.
Through the territorial federations, everyone, absolutely everyone, has called and been concerned.”
In these ten days of catastrophe, gestures of solidarity from the world of football have not stopped occurring, both from Valencian footballers or those who play in clubs in the province, as well as from other parts of Spain.
From the Valencia and Levante footballers -both male and female-, who have traveled to the affected areas and their stadiums to help receive food as a few more volunteers, to the coach Vicente Moreno, a native of Massanassa, who left for the Valencian town just after finishing the Osasuna-Valladolid.
Also others like Rubén García, born in Xàtiva, who has helped with cleaning tasks, or the athletic Marcos Llorente, who has provided machinery to clean, have traveled to some of the 75 affected towns.
“Through the territorial federations, everyone, absolutely everyone, has called and been concerned. They want to send us balls and material and we are telling them to wait for us to organize ourselves,” says Gomar.
The RFEF has already sent three pallets with boxes of sportswear from the national teams, which will be distributed by the FFCV among the affected clubs while Burjassot, dean of Valencian football, has made its facilities available so that the affected clubs can train. and play their matches. In addition, Jove Español San Vicente has offered a bus with club volunteers to help with cleaning tasks.
“Many fields are being used as field hospitals and there are also pavilions used as food collection and storage points, sport is helping in their locations,” he concludes.
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