Very few, outside the borders of our republic, know our politicians. On the other hand, names, such as Petr Čech, Tomáš Rosický or Pavel Nedvěd and many others are admired all over the world by both little and big girls and by boys from the age of five until one hundred! There are many factors that have credit for the fact that new and new names are added every year in this category of ‘sports envoys’. The only one which does not play any role in this is the National Football Stadium. Our republic simply needs a national football stadium.

In modern history, the Czech National Team has been very successful, whether it was the second place in Euro 96 in England or the third place in Euro 04 in Portugal, participation in the World Cup 2006 in Germany and recently the qualification for Euro 08 in Austria and Switzerland. The position of the Czech football is supported by our position among the top ten national teams in FIFA rankings. It is a great success, no smaller than if the Czech Republic ranked among the top ten world’s most developed countries.

It is obvious that the above mentioned facts arouse interest of Czech fans in the football representation of our country. Every boy and man in the Czech Republic understands football and the Czech fans got used to the fact that the economic situation of Czech football clubs is not good enough to keep their top players in the country. The only chance how to see our football stars besides the TV, are home matches of our representation team. It is perfectly clear that the interest of spectators in the representation matches at home as well as in some of our football league matches within European cups greatly exceeds the possibilities of any Czech stadium. The demand for tickets to attractive representation football duels is much bigger than the capacity of the stadiums that host the matches.

The truth is, that in the last few decades, no football stadium has been built that would meet the present quality criteria including the capacity of over 20 thousand places. Today’s state is pathetic. The most important representation matches take place in Letna’s Sparta stadium whose capacity is less than 21 thousand spectators. It is true, that in 2005, the stadium was reconstructed to meet the criteria for international events, this reconstruction was, however, mostly technical and had nothing to do with the capacity of the stadium.

For these reasons and from the point of view of the future perspective of Czech football, the Czech-Moravian Football Federation came to a conclusion that the construction of a National Football Stadium is a must.

The Football Federation took the decision to plan the construction of a national stadium already in 1996. It has gradually come up with many different variants mostly related to the selection of an appropriate location with regards to the city planning and property relations towards the land in question.

After a consultation, Prague was determined as the most favourable location. Many would not have expected any other location, however, it was not so unequivocal. So far, the largest stadium in the CR is the Brno the Za Luzanky stadium, which at its prime time had the capacity of up to fifty thousand spectators. The problem is that today it is in a critical condition. It is not used anymore and waiting to be reconstructed. Its transformation into the National Football Stadium would be a great solution to many of its problems.

The Moravian variant, however, didn’t have enough influential supporters, that is why Prague soon became the number one option. Besides, Prague City Council adopted the resolution to build the stadium already in November 2003 and in December of the same year, a memorandum on cooperation in the matter of the project of the National Football Stadium was signed between Prague City Hall and the Czech-Moravian Football Federation.

Councillor Pavel Klega, who was at that time assigned to closely study the question, told the media: „ It is clear that Prague, the city in the heart of Europe and an important cultural and social centre has a significant deficit in sports areas with adequate infrastructure. It is also clear, that similar huge investments cannot be taken on by the city or the state, but mostly by the private sector… The Czech Republic could thus have a sports area suitable also for the organization of, for instance. The European Football Championship. In any case, the project is beneficial for not only Prague but for the whole Czech Republic. It is at the same time a socially favourable project…“

Now, it is the year 2008. Twelve years have passed since the decision on the construction of the National Football Stadium but the stadium has not been built yet and the foundation stone hasn’t been laid either. What is more, it is still not clear, despite numerous promises, where in Prague the stadium would be built. Things concerning the construction of the stadium are getting more and more unclear. It doesn’t seem that it will be built in the near future. Nonetheless, never say never. This is more than true in this case.

František Sládek