PM Kubilius vs. Lithuanian national football team

VILNIUS - Two years ago, the construction of the National Football Stadium, with 30,000 seats in the Seskine quarter in Vilnius, was abandoned after the state had already spent 100 million litas (29 million euros) on it due to a scandal of misappropriated spending of money during the construction. The media then speculated that the Order and Justice Party, which two years ago was in power in the Vilnius municipality, and the Social Democrats, who two years ago were in power at the national level, possibly had their own material interest in the stadium’s construction. The Soviet era Zalgiris Stadium in Vilnius is privatized and abandoned. This means that the Lithuanian national football team now has no high standard stadium in which to play important international matches. The pitch of the stadium in Kaunas, where the national team usually plays, is of poor quality. There is a new stadium in Marijampole, where the Lithuanian national football team plays sometimes, but it is a small stadium in a small town. On March 29, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and leading players of the Lithuanian national football team exchanged some harsh words on the stadium issue.

“Even without new arenas, Lithuanian basketball clubs were winning the most important international competitions and the Lithuanian national basketball team was winning the European championships,” Kubilius said during his press conference of March 29, adding that good stadiums in Lithuania will appear only after Real and Chelsea will arrive to Lithuania.
“Today, players of Real and Barcelona played here. What else does Kubilius need? The arrival of Abramovich? [Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is the owner of Chelsea] Kubilius’ statements are a shame,” said Lithuanian national team player Marius Stankevicius, who now plays for the Valencia club (during the previous season he played for the Sevilla club), after the Euro 2012 qualifying match Lithuania vs. Spain of March 29, which was played on a pitch of poor quality in Kaunas’ Darius and Girenas Stadium.

“The prime minister has little clue about football. It is funny to listen to his talk. One more time he showed his wisdom. There is nothing to say,” another Lithuanian national team player, Deividas Semberas, said.

Liutauras Varanavicius, president of the Lithuanian Football Federation, proposed to the Lithuanian government to reconstruct a track-and-field stadium in Vilnius into a football stadium with 12,000 seats. Such reconstruction and building of a new stadium for track-and-field athletes would cost 100 million litas. The government rejected his proposition. Now, the Lithuanian Football Federation is reconstructing Vetra Stadium in Vilnius for 11 million litas. However, the pitch will be synthetic, not natural grass.

The reconstruction should be complete after the summer. Vetra Stadium was severely devastated by hordes of drunken Polish fans (Polish and Serbian football hooligans are considered to be the most aggressive in the world) in 2007 during the UEFA Intertoto tournament’s match Vilnius Vetra vs. Warsaw Legia. The match was abandoned when Lithuania was leading, 2-0. Then, Polish fans spilled onto the pitch and Lithuanian mounted police were sent against the Poles. Warsaw Legia was disqualified from the Intertoto then due to such behavior of the Polish fans. However, it was not the Polish fans but the financial bankruptcy of the Vetra club that caused the fact that Vetra Stadium is now owned by the Lithuanian Football Federation. This allows the federation to reconstruct this stadium, which will have 7,500 seats.