Dutch Eredivisie football club NAC Breda has reached the crowdfunding target set to help it purchase its home stadium, the Rat Verlegh Stadion.
The club had set a target of €1.25m (£1.1m/$1.4m) to be raised via the crowdrealestate.com
NAC Breda needs a total of €5.5m to purchase the 19,000-seat stadium, which is currently owned by the municipality of Breda. The club’s exclusivity period to buy the stadium runs until May 31.
A club spokesperson told Dutch newspaper BN DeStem: “Via Crowd-realestate, companies are also being contacted who invest more often in their projects. Some of the pre-registrations will certainly come from there. So the amount so far does not come only through our sponsors and supporters.”
The club used to control the stadium but was forced to transfer ownership of the ground to the municipality of Breda in 2003 amid financial difficulties. BN DeStem reported that the municipality in 2017 opted to sell the stadium because the relationship between itself and the club had become “too entangled”. The asking price for the stadium has dropped from an initial €7.5m, which has led to interest from the club.
Rat Verleigh Stadion opened in 1996 and this season NAC Breda’s attendance figures have averaged out at 98.1 per cent of the ground’s capacity, a league high in the Eredivisie.
Image: G.Lanting
