Work on Roma stadium 'to start in spring (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, December 6 - Work on AS Roma's new stadium will start next spring at the latest, club General Manager Mauro Baldissoni said Wednesday after the project got a technical green light Tuesday night pending definitive city-council and regional-government votes. Baldissoni said the inaugural game there would be in the 2020-21 season. He said "the objective is to open the building site at the end of April or at the latest the beginning of May 2018...in order to have a construction time that may vary from 26 to 28 months. "And thus to have the 2020-21 season as a reachable goal".
    The project is still subject to "various administrative passages", he said, including the council vote on modifying the city's urban plan "and then there will be a new passage in the regional government that will give the definitive certification to build".
    Earlier this year Roma President James Pallotta warned he would sell up the Serie A club if the Lazio regional government does not approve the project for the swanky new stadium in the south of the capital.
    The club had significantly scaled down the much-delayed project, inspired by the Colosseum, axing two office towers to win the backing of Mayor Virginia Raggi.
    As Roma has long desired its own private stadium, along the lines of the Juventus Stadium.
    At present they share the publicly owned Olimpico stadium with crosscity rivals Lazio.