New Cagliari Stadium | DG Melis at the Social Football Summit

“Building a stadium in Italy is an act of faith. But we have never stopped.”
With these words, the General Director of Cagliari Calcio, Stefano Melis, spoke in Turin at the Social Football Summit organized by Serie A, during the panel dedicated to the topic: “Are Football Infrastructures a Real Investment? Which Models Are Truly Sustainable?”, together with representatives from Deloitte, Udinese, and Fiorentina.

“In Cagliari, we have been working on the new stadium project for almost a decade, and if our Club did not have solid ownership with strong and deeply rooted principles — among which perseverance undoubtedly stands out — I strongly doubt we would have carried on. Over these years, millions have been spent on legal, financial, strategic, and design consulting, but above all it has taken a great deal of patience to accommodate the demands of the various political groups and the requirements of the many public bodies involved in the process,” Melis emphasized.

The project has recently taken a crucial step forward with the approval granted by the decision-making Services Conference. Cagliari Calcio and Deloitte are now working on updating the Economic and Financial Plan (PEF), which will be certified by UniCredit, while SFIRS, the financial institution of the Region of Sardinia, has confirmed its willingness to take the lead in coordinating debt financing together with the Istituto per il Credito Sportivo and other commercial banks.

“We have followed the recommendations of UEFA and the FIGC — with significantly higher costs — in choosing to build a 30,000-seat stadium from the outset, so that the city of Cagliari can apply to host Euro 2032. We now expect the Government to finally make the equity fund for stadiums operational, supporting our project as the Municipality and the Region of Sardinia are already doing, thus giving a concrete boost to the renewal of the dilapidated infrastructure landscape in our country. Let us remember that this is a public work — with a fifty-year concession granted to whoever wins the international tender — and that it will be financed largely with private capital.”

Melis concluded by expressing the hope of “submitting the PEF to the Municipality of Cagliari by the first half of December, and then having all the tools needed to begin building an infrastructure destined to reshape the sporting, economic, and social future of Cagliari — while at the same time becoming a benchmark for Sardinia and a point of pride for Italy.”