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As promised when we introduced our new section "Ask a Question...", LFF President Liutauras Varanavičius gladly answered the questions of the multitude of EuroFootball.com portal visitors.
Today we present the first part of this exclusive interview, while the continuation (Part II) will be available tomorrow, on Friday, May 22nd.
- Recently, the Spanish national team refused to train at the poor conditions of the "Žalgiris" sports base during their visit to Vilnius. Couldn't better fields have been offered to the Spaniards?
- Except for the "Vėtra" stadium, there were no better options. The Lithuanian national team trained at the "Vėtra" stadium, a training program was arranged, and if we had, as usual, given the guests the best place, while taking whatever is left for ourselves, this time we decided not to do so because the result was very important to us.
- Why couldn't they be offered to train at the "Žalgiris" or, let's say, the "Vingis" stadium?
- The "Vingis" stadium looked even worse than the "Žalgiris". I spoke with the owners of the "Vilnius" club, who use it, and it really looked worse, and there were no other better options. Training on the "Žalgiris" field was not an option because it would have affected how the field would look for the game - people even worked until 4 am, watering it, to make it playable.
- Who sent the Spanish team to the "Žalgiris" sports base?
- We offered them a few options, they chose this one, but later the coach came and was frightened. The problem is this - usually teams come a month before, check the situation, decide where to train, etc. They did it differently, they sent some Swedish travel agency to represent them. Everything was fine for the agency, so we didn't argue.
- What obstacles hinder the construction of the "Žalgiris" stadium and complex in New Vilnius?
- The "Žalgiris" stadium is hindered by time: in June, an infrastructure contract was signed with the city, a concept has been prepared, which should be approved by the end of November, and once it is approved, the city must give permission for planning work. In fact, as of today, there are no formal obstacles.
Meanwhile, the start of the construction of the New Vilnius complex is hindered by the unresolved detailed plan, and we are going through all the approval stages with already the fifth version. The mayor said that in the next council meeting it will be approved, so we're just waiting. We made the fifth version of the plan so that it would finally fit and not disturb the locals.
- Who would finance these projects, could funding be obtained from UEFA?
- The construction of the "Žalgiris" stadium would be financed by private funds, and if the government agrees to contribute, it would be very nice because it would be a representative stadium. Regarding the New Vilnius complex, we have discussed as follows: 25-30 percent will be from the federation, which we have already secured, and we just need to submit the entire project and contracts to UEFA; 25 percent has been promised by the city, about 20-25 percent should come from private initiatives, as there is a certain interest from individuals, and we hope to get 25 percent from the government. If the first three parts are already secured, currently we do not have the fourth part, so we will create the project and apply again.
- If the "Žalgiris" stadium is demolished, will we not see some kind of "Akropolis" in its place?
...- A lot of people complained about problems buying tickets for the matches against Spain, some were dissatisfied with the security staff's work during the game. What do you think about this and how are such issues being resolved?
- We are not satisfied with the ticket distribution system ourselves. We tried various options but have not found a good solution yet. We hoped it would work with bilietai.lt, which has a pretty efficient system, but due to personnel changes there, cooperation for these matches was interrupted, and with others, we hope they will mature, and we will be able to talk to them because they have the most points. This is a serious problem, we acknowledge, but there was no other way, as we tried various methods - distributing through Bitė salons, IKI centers, etc. Regarding security - well, will there ever be a fan satisfied with the security staff's work - I was not either. We communicate with "Argus", and we think they will gradually improve, although they have the most experience securing matches. Such experiences have not been needed so much so far - we are far from the Western level of security that should be, but it is a common problem, not just for football matches. There are ideas about using volunteers for a certain security function.
- How much did the Spanish television pay LFF for broadcasting the matches against Spain?
- I can't say because the contract prohibits disclosing amounts. But it is less than what we spend on the national team per year.
- What size of bonuses will the footballers receive for achieving results?
- For achieving the results in the matches against Belgium, San Marino, and Spain, each result was paid one hundred thousand litas to the entire national team.
The continuation will be in the second part..."
