September 12 saw the ground-breaking ceremony of the future, brand-new football stadium in Varna. The event is important because this will be just the second new football stadium built in Bulgaria for 18 years, since the fall of communism. The other stadium that was built during this time was the stadium of Naftex football club in Bourgas, on the Black Sea. That stadium, however, was planned before the fall of communism while the Varna project will be built following all the recent changes to technical standards and requirements by both UEFA and FIFA. The aim of the investors in the new stadium is to host international events, such as football qualifiers for European and World Championships, that will put Varna back on the world football map.

Behind this ambitious project are Varna municipality and the company Sport Complex Varna (SCV). The municipality will provide the land for the complex; seven ha. The project is expected to cost about 30 million leva and will be financed by Chimimport, who own the majority of shares in SCV. The news that the company won the deal is not a surprise because Chimimport is owned by the Varna based industrial group TIM.

Through Chimimport, TIM owns Central Cooperative Bank, the pension fund CCB-Sila, the insurance company Armeetz, air company Hemus Air – the second-biggest air carrier in Bulgaria – and oil and gas prospecting firm Prouchvane i Dobiv na Neft i Gaz. In 2006, TIM bought 70 per cent of Bulgarian River Shipping company.

The facility may not impress with its size at a capacity of just 30 000 seats, but its design certainly should. On the website of SCV, www.sportcomplexvarna.com, the visuals are more than original. All construction work will be completed by Bulgarian construction companies, according to the Chimimport offer. This, it said, would keep down the costs of the project. For example, if a foreign construction company was selected the price of a seat would have been between 2500 euro and 4000 euro, while using Bulgarian subcontractors will mean a seat will cost between 1300 euro and 1500 euro.

According to the plans, the project should be completed within three years, which means Varna should be ready to host an international football game in 2010. The big plan of the municipality, however, is to turn Varna into an alternative to Bourgas when it comes to the national football team playing its games outside Sofia.

The other aim is to host the international games of Bulgarian football clubs playing in UEFA tournaments. Varna is the most popular tourist destination on Bulgarian Black Sea coast, with the majority of foreigners coming either from the UK or Russia. An international game with a football club from those countries would mean more reasons for their supporters to come and leave their money in Varna, the municipality reasoned. This has been the case with Bourgas and Varna certainly would not like to miss this opportunity.

Besides the new facility, which will certainly make Varna proud, the stadium will mean a lot for Varna residents from an emotional point of view. The new stadium, which so far has no name and is referred simply as Varna City stadium, will be built on the location of the current city stadium. This stadium is called Yuri Gagarin and for the past 18 years has been the a matter of numerous discussions among the residents of Varna as to what could be done with it. Gagarin, carrying the name of the first man to be sent to space, was the pearl of Varna in the years under communism. It was among the “modern”, for that time, sport facilities in Bulgaria and attracted much attention. Many sports events and concerts were held in Yuri Gagarin during the summer. The stadium had a athletic track, which was perfect for outdoor events, and the 23 000 seats were occupied almost all the time. The record was in 1983 when Manchester United played against one of Varna’s two football teams, Spartak, when 40 000 people crowded the stadium. That had never happened before. Spartak lost by 1:2 but the game is still discussed in the city. Nottingham Forest are another UK team that played at Gagarin.

Unfortunately, the new stadium will not have an athletic track and will serve only as a football facility. Athletics fans in Varna should not worry because Chimimport also won the tender for the construction of an athletic track complex in another Varna neighbourhood, Mladost.

The sad story of Gagarin started with fall of communism when all funds allocated to sport were reduced. The city had no money to support the stadium since it was neither the home of Spartak nor Cherno More, who had to worry about their own stadiums. The stadium simply was left on its own and time took its toll. Currently it is virtually just a shell. It only “lived” for a day or two in the summers when concerts were staged there but this summer even they did not happen for safety reasons. The biggest problem of Gagarin is the way it was built in the first place or more precisely where it was positioned. It does not meet not a single FIFA requirement. The new stadium will have a completely new position and nothing will be left from Gagarin – just the memories.