La volontà del sindaco è chiara: vendere l’Olimpico Grande Torino. Intanto Cairo lo ha in concessione per altri 18 mesi
“Buying the stadium? Let’s see, we are not actors in this matter. We talk about things that can be done, buying the stadium today is not possible.” This is how Urbano Cairo commented three months ago on the hypothesis of buying the Olimpico Grande Torino: it was February 22, a few days ago the City Council had announced that it had filed a petition with the revenue agency not to renew the approximately 38 million mortgage on the facility. Now that the petition has been granted, Cairo and Torino undoubtedly become major players in the affair.
Il primo interlocutore del Comune sarà Cairo
But what will happen in the coming months? The intention of Mayor Stefano Lo Russo and the entire city council has long been clear: to sell the stadium. Clearly, the first interlocutor will be Cairo himself, as president of the team that uses the facility, but it remains to be seen what the top granata executive will want to do. So far the idea of investing several million in the facility has never enticed him, not least because the Olimpico Grande Torino would need renovation to be transformed into a modern facility.
Until this moment Cairo has never been in a particular hurry to provide Torino with its own facilities, just think of the construction time of the Robaldo or the Filadelfia that has not yet been completed, now, however, he will have to think about what to do with the stadium: he still has a few months at his disposal considering that Torino has the facility under concession until the end of December 2026. To the hypothesis of buying the Olimpico Grande Torino, however, he has already started thinking about it, also with a view to a future sale of the club: having an owned stadium could in fact raise the sale price of the club.
Le soluzioni alternative
The City Council, however, while giving priority to Cairo, is also evaluating all other possible proposals that could come from third parties, with whom Torino will then have to negotiate to possibly have the facility under concession again. But that’s not all, as Lo Russo himself had explained in recent months there are also other solutions that the City Council has begun to evaluate: “If the mortgage were to be lifted we have also opened up to different hypotheses: the surface right to be put out to tender with project financing or a public-private partnership.” Certainly, dialogues between Torino and the municipality will resume soon.
A general view outside stadio Olimpico Grande Torino is seen prior to the Coppa Italia Frecciarossa football match between Torino FC and Feralpisalo.
