The choice of the moment for the last press conference of the mayor of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca (PP) – on a Friday afternoon – predicted the worst. And his words confirmed it: the reform of the La Romareda stadium, a project surrounded by total opacity for the municipal opposition, an initiative that would initially only require private capital, which would later amount to 80 million public euros, will ultimately cost more of 150 million -without VAT- to the coffers of the Zaragoza City Council and the Government of Aragon.
And the numbers could still get worse. It is the story of Operation Romareda, whose last chapter offered an almost Orwellian situation: the mayor tried to camouflage the extra 72 million euros that both institutions have to contribute under the argument of a saving “of between 35 and 50 million euros.” as interest.
With the current photograph, of the 169 million at which Chueca valued the entire investment – between the renovation of the field, the portable stadium and operating expenses -, at least 152 will be public money, while the ownership of Real Zaragoza has put 12, 8 million (6 as an initial contribution and 6.8 this year). When will the club compensate for this gap? “When society begins to have income, with the field already built,” said the mayor, although there is no more commitment than her words.
It must be remembered that, according to the statutes of the La Nueva Romareda society, the income from the operation of the stadium falls directly on the club, which will pay an annual fee to the society for this concept of between €500,000 and €3,000,000 per year. plus between 3% and 5% of income. Meanwhile, the income from the tertiary uses – the commercial area – will go to the La Nueva Romareda company, created for the development of the project and made up of the City Council, the regional Executive and the club itself.
With these data, the panorama looks very profitable for Real Zaragoza: according to a preliminary study by the consulting firm IDOM – present in most of the projects linked to the new Romareda -, the differential operating income that the stadium can generate will be around 14 million a year, of which only 2.4 million would be from the commercial area. And this despite the fact that it has invested much less funds since, therefore, its percentage in society is lower.
“A black hole of public money”
On the part of the opposition, the reaction to Chueca’s announcement on Friday was indignation at the “lack of transparency” and “opacity”, a constant complaint of both the PSOE and Zaragoza en Común (ZEC) since the project was launched. . Neither of the two parties is part of the La Nueva Romareda society. “It seriously compromises the Budget and the future of the city for the coming years,” lamented the socialists. “The countryside is a real black hole of public money,” they attacked from ZEC.
There remains the question of VAT, from which according to the PP governments both institutions would be free. They link it to a figure called inversion of the taxable subject, according to which, in a work such as the renovation of the stadium, the successful bidder would not even have to include this tax in the invoice. Tax experts consulted admit that it is likely that both the Government of Aragon and the Zaragoza City Council can benefit from it, although it will be necessary to know in detail “what the business model is.” To do this, it will be necessary to sign the “contractual relationship” which, according to the statutes of La Nueva Romareda, will specify “the technical and economic conditions” that will govern the management of the field; That is, it specifies how much the club has to contribute to society for the operation of the stadium and for what.
An old longing always accompanied by tumult
The renovation of the stadium that houses Real Zaragoza is an old desire of the City Council, always accompanied by tumult. Almost all corporations have proposed it this century, but either the municipal opposition – the PP two decades ago, for example – or the economic situation – the 2008 crisis – ended up ruining the dream.
Until Jorge Azcón.
The current regional president made it clear how far he was capable of going before even becoming mayor: on the closing day of the campaign for the 2019 municipal elections, he presented on the grass of the same stadium – and with the connivance of the club – a plan to reform La Romareda for 70 million euros. Real Zaragoza received a barrage of reproaches from parties and fans. Azcón lost the elections, but became mayor with the support of Ciudadanos.
During the first half of his mandate, the project seemed stalled, but in the spring of 2022 a fundamental event occurred: an investment group headed by Cuban-American businessman Jorge Mas acquired Real Zaragoza SAD. Only one person was repeated on the Board of Directors: the builder Juan Forcén, who had – and has maintained – a close friendship with Azcón for years. The new Romareda began to fuel. Just two weeks after the announcement about the club’s change of hands, the then mayor made public that he was opting to renovate the current stadium instead of looking for a new location. “Technical criteria,” he argued.
The new managers of the club assure us that the viability of the construction is guaranteed without the City Council having to make any disbursement
Jorge Azcon
— November 2022
During that year 2022, the issue of financing was relegated. Although without specifying it, Azcón spoke in those months of “public-private collaboration” and was pleased that the construction would not fall “on the taxes of the people of Zaragoza.” But the deadlines to reach the 2030 World Cup were getting shorter by the moment and decisions had to be made.
Just two years ago, in the debate on the state of the city, Azcón launched his proposal for the new field in an electoral key: the City Council would put out to tender in the first half of 2023 the construction and exploitation of the field through an urban modification . The exploitation of tertiary (commercial) uses by the successful bidders would serve to finance the field. The people of Zaragoza – and the Aragonese – were freed from the million-dollar bill for the stadium. Or so they thought.
But this “simple” and “calm” formula, as defined by the Minister of Urban Planning, Víctor Serrano – then in Cs, now integrated into the ranks of the PP – ran into the club itself: the ownership of Real Zaragoza alleged that the numbers They couldn’t come up with that equation and demanded that, instead of 40, the exploitation be extended to 75 years, through the surface right formula. This option, as argued by the City Council, guaranteed that the financing would be entirely private.
The PSOE considered it a “privatization” of the municipal stadium, but did not plead so as not to hinder the operation. However, the Podemos municipal group appealed the contract specifications before the Administrative Court of Public Contracts of Aragon, the TACPA. This administrative body agreed with the purple formation at the beginning of July and declared “the nullity of the bidding procedure”; Just two weeks later, the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon heard the appeal of the Zaragoza City Council and provisionally suspended the TACPA decision: the stadium tender could continue.
And September arrived. Just one day before the deadline to submit offers to the public tender for the construction of the field expired, and with that of Real Zaragoza as the only proposal, the club made its resignation public. He attributed this to the “legal uncertainty” created by Podemos’s appeal, which was in force for 16 days. Goodbye to the dream of financing the stadium with private resources.
But there was no problem in reaching an agreement between the regional Executive and the Zaragoza City Council, already governed by the same party, the PP. President Azcón comfortably adapted his speech to justify financing the countryside with public funds and accused the left of everything.
In December of last year, the company La Nueva Romareda SL was finally established with a paid-up capital of 50.5 million euros: 24.5 million from the City Council, 20 from the Government of Aragon and 6 from Real Zaragoza. The initial commitment that each partner would contribute 40 million euros has now been blown up, although only in the form of more public money invested. And the works have barely begun. The final bill is yet to be written.
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