The tender documents for the Mercafir site were made public last week and we are in the process of determining our next steps. We would like to thank the Mayor and the public officials for their efforts in getting to this point. While we appreciate the fact that a public tender for the land has been issued, we nevertheless have relevant concerns related to many of the details in the tender documents.

In addition to the Euro22 million price for the land, which we have communicated from the beginning as being too high in our view, there are a number of other direct costs that Fiorentina must incur that makes the overall price for the Mercafir site prohibitively expensive. Moreover, there are other open-ended risks associated with the tender.  On top of our concerns is the fact that there are no guarantees that the seller of the land will deliver to Fiorentina a property that is free and clear of any issues and in a timely fashion.

Our announced commitment in October 2019 to proceed with the Mercafir option was conditioned on a 4 year timeframe to complete the construction of the stadium by September 2023.  We are now looking at an 8 month delay in that schedule already at this early stage, while there are no measures in place to ensure that further delays don’t occur in the future, despite the good intentions of the Administration.

Our desire is to actively cooperate with the Mayor and the Administration of Florence to give to Fiorentina and its fans a new, beautiful and comfortable stadium.

However, while we evaluate our decision of whether to participate in the tender, we must say, humbly but clearly, that if this process does not happen in a timely fashion and at reasonable costs,  our willingness to pursue the Mercafir project will quickly fade. In the meantime, we will continue to entertain other opportunities available to us, including not building a new stadium at all