Featured image credit: CD Leganés
CD Leganés has secured its long-term future at the Estadio Municipal de Butarque through the agreement of a 50-year lease deal that will result in upgrades to the LaLiga club’s home stadium.
Years in the making, the contract has been agreed with Leganés City Council, owner of the circa 13,000-capacity Butarque, which first opened in 1998. Under the deal, CD Leganés will pay a total of €16,852,796 (£13.92m/$17.56m) over the 50-year term to use the stadium.
CD Leganés has also committed to invest €5.7m in the development of a sports centre in the Leganés Norte neighbourhood. The facility will have an 11-a-side artificial grass football pitch, six tennis courts and a multi-sport hall. The agreement states that the facility has a construction period of 18 months from the date the concession comes into effect and must be operational within 21 months.
The club has committed to making 60 tickets available to the City Council for each league match, as well as hosting an annual tournament at Butarque that will help to continue positioning Leganés on the map of Spanish sporting activity. The City will also have advertising rights throughout the club’s facilities.
CD Leganés will also invest in the stadium over the next four years through modernisation work. The funds will be derived from the club’s income from the LaLiga Impulso venture. President of CD Leganés, Jeff Luhnow, said: “Today we celebrate an achievement that will mark the destiny of CD Leganés and Leganés as a city.
“Butarque is and will be our home, and we want it to continue to be a proud, united and ambitious symbol. With this concession, we look to the future with enthusiasm, knowing that together, club, fans and administration, we continue to build a success story.”
Mayor of Leganés, Miguel Ángel Recuenco, added: “CD Leganés is the best commercial agent we can have in the city. And with this agreement we give it a legal guarantee and certainty for the future.
“After so many years of waiting and uncertainty, this Government, working as a team with enthusiasm, passion and effort, has successfully achieved the objective of moving the concession forward. Now it is our turn to continue dreaming… and working.”
Luhnow said the sports centre component of the deal “fulfils a historical debt” to which the club committed itself, giving back to the local community.
He added: “We are going to invest in the stadium to modernise it and bring it up to the standard that our fans and the city deserve.
“Together we are taking a very important step today. But we cannot stop here and now we will seek an agreement for the sports facility and in order to grow we have to invest in this facility, because it is the smallest of all the LaLiga clubs and we also want to be a sub-venue for the 2030 (FIFA) World Cup.”
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