Yesterday evening, during a San Donato Milanese City Council meeting, a motion was discussed which aimed to suspend the process relating to the program agreement in the path towards the construction of a new AC Milan stadium.
As reported by Calcio e Finanza, Milan’s plan is to build a 70,000 seat facility in the area which will be a state of the art new stadium and will allow the club to compete with the top European clubs from a revenue perspective.
However, there has been some predictable opposition. The title of the motion that was voted on in the chamber is as follows: ‘Urgent motion – Territorial government. San Francesco area. urban transformation intervention of a sporting nature (AC Milan stadium) with supra-municipal relevance – suspension of the process relating to the program agreement presented by the councilors Ginelli, Falbo’.
After over an hour of discussion and debate by the councillors – above all Gianfranco Ginelli, strongly opposed to the project for the new stadium – the motion was rejected. Of the 23 votes cast, only two were in favour, with seven abstentions and 14 against.
The motion was the latest attempt by the centre-left minority to stop the project for the new Milan stadium, which however has the support of mayor Squeri and the majority.
There are still issues of concern, such as that of parking in a region of around 35,000 people which, at least every two weeks, will have to host people double that amount.
The mayor Francesco Squeri also spoke after the result, reiterating some interesting points about the project.
“It is not the council that can order the mayor to take action conditional on proceedings other than the one currently underway, linked to the possible variation to the PGT,” he said.
“This is a procedure that recalls the specific skills of the mayor. I claim autonomy in the decision to activate the program agreement, in compliance with the rules that govern it and I remember that the ongoing investigation has a well-defined process and is certainly not conditioned by evaluations of mere expediency.
“I confirm that I will keep the council and the city informed on the developments of the path that I will start in the next few days . The motion does not have the contents to be dealt with and I ask the councillors to reject it.”
Going into the merits of the project, the mayor recalled: “In the past two administrations, ten years, councillor Ginelli [one of the promoters of the motion] participated in the opportunity to carry forward two football stadium projects in that area: in 2013 Inter and in 2016 Milan. In those years Chiaravalle existed and San Siro was there, but on those occasions they didn’t say: ‘We don’t even want to meet you’.
“Exactly the opposite happened, they met them and carried out a project, even if nothing came of it. But that doesn’t mean the administration wasn’t willing to be able to develop a stadium project in that area.
“In 2016 they didn’t wait for Milan to propose a project, but they actually called them. They were talking about Sesto and were called with the indication that there was a suitable area here to build the stadium.
“We want to carry forward a project that will develop into a program agreement, so that the city of San Donato can have many advantages and few disadvantages. If you do not meet these requirements, we will evaluate accordingly.
“It is a project of supra-municipal interest and bodies such as the Lombardy Region, the Metropolitan City and the State Railways are involved. Many technical meetings are being held and no one has raised any doubts about the fact that Milan is being investigated.
“They have not taken these considerations forward and I don’t see why we can’t move forward with the program agreement.”
ACM have full support from mayor squeri but there is still few people dont want to see san donato growing
One step forward…let’s keep pushing. Forza Milan.