Celta Vigo president Carlos Mouriño has said the Spanish LaLiga football club will file a lawsuit against the city council amid ongoing delays and cost increases relating to the redevelopment of its Estadio Municipal de Balaídos.
The 29,000-capacity stadium first opened in 1928 before undergoing major renovation ahead of Spain’s hosting of the 1982 FIFA World Cup. In 2015, a project commenced for another major redevelopment but the work has been hit by a string of delays.
In August last year, Celta filed a complaint with the city council, which owns the stadium, over what Mouriño said at the time had been a “botched” process to redevelop the Balaídos. Little progress has been made since then and Mouriño is stepping up his case against the council after claiming that the project will cost €30m (£25.8m/$36.5m) more than originally planned.
The lawsuit filed by Mouriño will look to cancel the contract to redevelop the stadium. The development comes after Mouriño said in August that the delays could see the cost of the project exceed €50m, with the cost of upgrading the Marcador stand alone said to have risen from €9.5m to €16.6m.
“This judicial process will end in the criminal courts,” Mouriño said, according to Spanish newspaper AS. “We do not want to accept the egos of anyone. Celta is above its owners, its president and the mayor of the city.”
Mouriño added: “They are hiding things, we are not being told the truth. He (Vigo Mayor Abel Caballero) wants to put us against everyone by lying over and over again. Balaídos continues to be patched and with the patches we are not going anywhere.”
Mouriño said he does not know how long it will take to see the stadium work completed, adding that the council does not want to let the club grow.
Image: juantiagues/CC BY-SA 2.0/Edited for size
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