A key tenant of the Sydney Football Stadium would "not have supported" the venue's rebuild had they known a multi-mode LED "curtain" was not to be included in the final budget.
Acting Sports Minister Geoff Lee on Monday confirmed the NSW government would not foot the bill for the curtain, saying
the revised $828 million price of the project was the "final cost".
The budget for the Sydney Football Stadium has increased to $828 million
Told of the government's position, Sydney FC chief executive Danny Townsend said the A-League football club would not have supported the stadium rebuild had the club known the two-mode function to accommodate smaller crowds would not be a feature of the new stadium in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
"Rebuilding a stadium of very similar size, with no different configuration would not have been something that we would have supported," he said. "We supported a project that had a two-mode system, that's what was sold to us, that's what got us really behind it and got us really excited about what our future home looked like."
During preliminary stages of stadium planning, tenants were told there would be funding for an LED curtain which would enable the top tier of the stadium to be closed off during events that attracted smaller crowds. The new stadium will hold 45,000 spectators, with Sydney FC games averaging about 15,000.
The government did not include funding for the curtain in the stadium's final budget, which it announced this month had blown out by $99m.
Mr Townsend said it sounded as if the government had "moved on" from the curtain, which was "the single most important thing" for Sydney FC when agreeing to the rebuild.
"I can't put it more clearly than that," Mr Townsend said. "We were confident that the government and the [SCG] Trust would deliver on that. At the end of the day, it's their facility, they own it, we're a tenant and we pay rent, that's how it works and we would like it to be the best possible experience for our fans once it opens.
"We've been led to believe all along that it was always part of the plan and may not have been funded in this first envelope, but there was a commitment to finding a solution."
At the unveiling of a $50.5 million taxpayer funded upgrade to the Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre, Dr Lee told the
Herald the disagreement between the tenants over the curtain was just "one of the issues" the government needed to "work through" before the stadium was built.
"At the moment, we've set the budget, we have been a very upfront to the public, it includes all the contingencies, so all we know is we have to deliver it by 2022," he said.
Dr Lee also said the reason why the curtain was originally included in the budget and then taken out was simply "a matter of costs". He said he could consider a commercial partnership to make the curtain a possibility.
"What people will see is a world-class stadium for world-class events," he said. "Let's see and we will wait and see how things go."
The stadium's other major tenants are Super Rugby team NSW Waratahs and NRL premiers Sydney Roosters.
A spokesman for NSW Rugby Union said this month that NSW Rugby "made the inclusion of a curtain within the stadium’s top tier a priority".
Sydney Roosters chief executive Joe Kelly said in December the LED curtain "was a key feature to the original design of the stadium that we supported".
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/stadiu...fOrwaFf6RCfMBrUpzfd4uflJ1s#Echobox=1577735638
