Third division club red hot

Not fit for the Bundesliga: License farce about the stadium

Failed! This is the case for SPG Wels in terms of licensing, even though the third-division soccer club has a modern stadium. However, according to a building permit from 2014, no loudspeaker announcements may be made after 9.30 pm. Although this has not been a problem so far.

It's a good thing that SPG Wels has already lost the promotion train this year in sporting terms anyway. Otherwise the third division club would have been in for a very, very rude awakening on Friday: The Bundesliga denied the third division club admission to the 2nd division. The reason: the infrastructure, even though it appears to be almost perfect.

Small detail, big impact
But: when reviewing the submitted documents, the responsible league senate found a tiny detail in the building permit from 2014. It states that there should be no loudspeaker announcements in the Huber Arena after 9.30 pm. And since some of the top games in the 2nd division only start at 8.30 pm, this was reason enough for the league to refuse SPG Wels a license. Although in the past, matches were still played after 9.30 p.m. due to their scheduling, and announcements were of course also made.

Problem must be solved
However, the difference is that the club had an event permit from the city for each of these matches. However, the league rejected this for reasons of so-called competition safety. According to the regulations, match dates should be possible regardless of decisions made by the authorities. In Wels, however, this is at least questionable from the Bundesliga's point of view due to the ten-year-old building permit. This means that if the club, which even wants to be one of the top 10 clubs in Austria in the long term, ever wants to be promoted, this problem must be solved.