Editorial / The National Stadium: Luxembourg's other ways of "nation branding"

Hope dies last. The fact that so many years would pass before the opening of a new Luxembourg national stadium deserves the title of tragedy. As a reminder, the key data of the history of the building: In 2009 Flavio Becca and Guy Rollinger launched the Liwingen project, and in November 2012 the government council decided against this building. Another two years passed before the tender for the planned new building on Cloche d’Or was issued. The long-awaited groundbreaking ceremony took place on September 18, 2017. That afternoon, not only FLF President Paul Philipp was beaming. Today, however, his choice of words, “Anticipation is the greatest joy that we will have for two years now”, almost sounds like a bad joke.

In between there were not only worries about the timeline, but also, as is well known, a real cost explosion (among other things because of folding seats, surveillance material and the 5G network): From the planned 35 million, the sum soared to 76,603,000 euros over the years. On Monday – almost three and a half years after the first excavators rolled in – the city of Luxembourg announced that the World Cup qualifying match against Portugal (March 30) could not take place on Kockelscheuer despite all efforts.

The reasons for the new delay, which were discovered after the UEFA visit two weeks ago, are all technical and IT. According to the client, the existing problems with the computer network include the video surveillance system, the Wi-Fi of the press, the electronic entry control and the computer network the TV broadcast affected. In addition, there is not enough leeway to carry out a mandatory test run under real conditions within the next five weeks.

While the interim construction freeze and the delays due to the pandemic last year seem understandable, it is not clear to what extent the virus played a role in the technical matters. The weather is also unlikely to have had any impact on the progress made in the work on the computer systems over the winter months.

Not only is the national football association disappointed, which would have had a European champion to visit for this premiere. The planned two years of construction work ultimately turned into four – and Philipp was accordingly “not surprised” that the time window had to be postponed again. In the meantime, it is not only football Luxembourg that has got used to comforting words and disillusionment when it comes to the national stadium. A few malicious comments on Facebook, a few angry smileys, but there was no real outcry on social media.

Instead, the announcement of another game at Stade Josy Barthel brought back memories of the old days. Cristiano Ronaldo, his “Selecção” and the potato field christened by CR7 are celebrating their comeback: “I have no idea how teams at this level can play in fields like these.” The superstar’s quote comes from 2019. What was meant was the green on Arloner Strasse, which had to be freshly relocated a few days later in a night and fog campaign for the Europa League duel of the F91 Dudelange. The videos of the cleaning rag campaign went around the world. The delayed move, on the other hand, is only a minor mishap, but it still throws a bad light on the FLF, which has their hands tied in this matter.

Or to put it another way: Luxembourg is taking a different approach to “nation branding” for its stadiums.

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After three years of Romance studies at the University of Lëtzebuerg and the Sorbonne-Paris IV, the former judoka completed her master’s degree in cross-border communication at the Université Paul Verlaine in Metz. Since February 2011 part of the sports department of the “Tageblatt”. Main focus: national football and martial arts.

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