Kladno will receive a grant for the repair of the winter stadium, the NSA approved the application

Kladno/Praha - Kladno will receive a grant for the renovation of the ice rink, the National Sports Agency (NSA) has approved its application. The city is set to receive at least one hundred million crowns. It remains to provide formal documents, said Vít Heral, spokesperson for the Kladno city hall, in a press release today. NSA spokesperson Jakub Večerka informed ČTK that the agency is waiting for several documents; the grant has not yet been definitively awarded, and it is also not possible to speculate on its amount. The total cost of renovation, which began about a year ago, will reach almost half a billion crowns. Kladno's mayor Milan Volf (Choice for Kladno) appreciated, among other things, the active approach of the owner of the hockey club, Jaromír Jágr, in connection with the approval of the grant.

For the city to receive the grant, it still needs to provide several documents, including evidence that the selection procedure was conducted transparently according to the law. "As soon as the city submits the documents, we will be able to issue a decision on the grant award. Until then, the grant is not definitively awarded, and it is also not possible to speculate on its amount," Večerka told ČTK.

The roof of the ice rink is now completed, and work on the facade is still ongoing. The hockey players will return to the ice rink in August, but even after that, repairs and modernization will continue.

According to Mayor Volf, the approval of the application is the result of a year’s work by a team of people. "The officials at the city hall, external expert advisors deserve credit for this, and I also appreciate the active approach of the owner of the hockey club, Jaromír Jágr. Fortunately, I have Deputy Přemysl Mužík backing me up, to whom the biggest thanks for professional cooperation with the NSA belong," said Volf.

Kladno also negotiated the grant with the Central Bohemian Region. From previous statements by the former leadership of the region and representatives of the state, Kladno's leadership inferred that the renovation of the rink should be financed equally by the city, the region, and the NSA. The leadership of the region, led by Governor Petra Pecková (STAN), informed the city in March that with the current region budget, it is not possible to finance such extensive renovations of foreign property, as even for the renovation of their own property, the regional administration often has to take loans.

The Kladno ice rink was built in 1959, and it has been repaired several times since then, but these were mostly minor adjustments. It serves the extraleague club Rytíři Kladno, the PZ Kladno club, and other amateur and youth teams as well as schools. The modernized rink will also be used for various sports and cultural events.

The NSA assessed nine applications from cities for grants for the renovation of stadiums and other sports facilities. The agency can distribute a maximum of 900 million crowns. Some cities have already had their grant applications rejected by the agency, such as those for stadiums in Pardubice, Zlín, and Hradec Králové.