“Nothing has changed,” said Oleg Blokhin during his visit to the Forward Stadium in February 2020. Despite tireless efforts, second division soccer team SK Forward Steyr is still trotting on the spot with its infrastructure projects. A demolition of the old cabin building and thus a refurbishment of the stadium is not getting any closer – although numerous projects for stadium refurbishment, for a new stadium building and the construction of a training center have already been conceived. The SKV still lacks a binding commitment from the city regarding the amount of support and adequate funding.
Now the club’s board is even threatening to resign: On March 23, the presidium handed over a list of demands to Steyr’s mayor, as a representative of the city government. “After all these years and many attempts, we are certain that the long-term, financially balanced operation of a Bundesliga team, including youth work, is only possible with the broad support of the city’s politicians. That is why we are calling on city politicians to make concrete, written and binding statements by the end of April on how we can celebrate the next 10 years together. Because Reinhard Schlager and Michael Obermair will only run again at the annual general meeting on June 8, 2022 if there is broad political approval for the future of the association. As a member association, we see it as our responsibility to provide information about such far-reaching decisions and consequences affecting SK BMD Vorwarts Steyr,” Vorwarts Steyr announced in a press release.
140 young children were also affected
Planning work started in 2017. Michael Obermair and Reinhard Schlager developed their own ideas for finding a location. In addition, the city was grasping at every straw. A large number of tests and conceptions followed. In between, there were repeated talks with the state and the city. All ideas were discussed several times with politicians. In addition, concepts for financing were created and many ideas for current income for future-proof management were developed. The sponsors and members as well as fans were informed at various events.
On January 17th of this year, the overall concept of the SKV was again presented to all city parties. All parties were then invited to get an impression of the current infrastructure conditions. In addition to the inadequate training conditions for our team in the 2nd Bundesliga, almost 140 children who are looked after by the SKV as youngsters are also affected.
Source: Nachrichten
