The Catalan Football Federation (FCF) jumped into the pool thinking there was water and came face to face with a secarral as big as the plot on which they planned to build their sports complex in Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Those responsible for the entity took it for granted that the City Council would lay out the red carpet to make their dream come true and so they announced it, without noticing that the municipal elections had caused a political change in the capital of Baix Llobregat and, therefore, Priorities and sensitivities have changed since mid-June.
The previous municipal government and those responsible for the federation had signed a protocol of intent in March of this year in which they undertook to explore the feasibility and suitability of building a Catalan “house of soccer” in the city. Three months were then given for its promoters to present it to the City Council and from there the suitability at a technical and political level was assessed. The term expired, although no one missed it, in the midst of a maelstrom of changes in a Consistory that last year had an ERC mayor after an agreement with the commons, at the head of the city in the previous eleven years.
The new socialist mayor, Lourdes Borrell, was still taking measurements of the office when she discovered through La Vanguardia on July 4 the various natural grass soccer fields with stands for 1,500 spectators, the residence for athletes and the new headquarters institution that the federation wanted to build in his city.
While the previous municipal government viewed the plan with good eyes, the current one cools off the option and weighs the repercussions that it may have, since it is the largest reserve of land for facilities in the city. If the place is occupied by the football fields of the Catalan teams, other issues of more local repercussion cannot be made.
"It is a moment in which we have to project in the medium and long term and have a broad view since we will reach 50,000 inhabitants in the coming years and we will need new equipment, such as a second library and another institute", highlights the mayoress , Lourdes Borrell, who defines this 68,000 m2 site as "of strategic importance" for the city. In the event of reaching an agreement between both parties, the land would have to be reclassified, which the FCF would like to have ready by 2028 at the latest, so that it can be a sub-site for training for the 2030 World Cup bid.
The project announced by the Catalan federation was also a huge surprise for the residents of the Mas Lluí neighbourhood, the last major urban development in Sant Feliu, which has grown over the last 25 years until it reached the gates of the Collserola natural park. Although there are those in the neighborhood who see it well and believe that it is an opportunity to win sports equipment, a significant majority fears that the project will further complicate access by car to the neighborhood, which right now is experiencing a situation of constant collapse at rush hour due to the street closures derived from the works of burying the train tracks.
The mayoress called a meeting with the residents two weeks ago to calm things down and promise them a participatory process in which their opinion would be taken into account in the unlikely event that the City Council approved the project. A hundred people attended who, like the municipal government, until that day did not have more information than what this newspaper had published.
To everyone's surprise, half an hour after the end of the neighborhood meeting, the explanatory report drafted by the federation entered the City Council registry. Now, with it in hand, the municipal government agrees to study it and, although they do not see it viable from the outset, they will give a definitive answer after the summer. The FCF, for its part, is probing other possible locations and perhaps when Sant Feliu acknowledges receipt it will already be dealing with another City Council in the metropolitan area.
