Alderman Franky Demon has been working on the stadium file of Club and Cercle for 10 years. “A new stadium must be built, because Jan Breydel is worn down to the seam,” he says.
Nevertheless, the ships do not want to call the stadium unsafe. According to him, the foundation and the supporting stones of the arena are well controlled and monitored.
“Especially the finish is dramatic”, Demon sighs, while he pulls a piece of concrete out of the wall and crumbles. “That is no longer of this time.”
The Jan Breydel Stadium was built in 1976 and modernized 20 years later for Euro 2000. In 2006, 17 years ago, the choice was made in Bruges to move to a new stadium.
“That was mainly because of the sporting and financial ambitions of the 2 teams. But then also because the stadium was past its best”, says Demon.
“Now it is already completely below average in terms of comfort and experience. There are stadiums in Poland that look better,” he laughs.
Preferably, Club Brugge would like to build the new stadium on the Olympia site, where the current stadium is located. Both the city of Bruges and the Flemish government issued a permit for this. But after a complaint from the neighbours, that permit was declared negative.
Demon understands the complaints of the local residents, but believes that the proposed problems can be solved:
“We are now working with the government to address the critical points in terms of mobility and parking options. Within 3 weeks we will have a new regulation ready that should solve the problem of parking.”
“But if this no longer succeeds, we have to ask ourselves where sporting ambitions can still be fulfilled in Flanders,” he sighs.
In time, it is possible that no more European matches will be allowed to take place in the Jan Breydel stadium. After all, UEFA has higher comfort requirements.
“The stadium is being worked on every day to meet those requirements. But there will come a day when even with all the patch work we will no longer meet the requirements,” Demon fears.
A new stadium seems the only solution. The plans are already ready for Club Brugge. But Cercle Brugge is also currently playing in Jan Breydel. Is there a plan for them too?
Demon does not want to say much about that: “There is also a lot of talk about that. But the worst thing we can do now is to reveal our plans for a camera.”
