St. Pölten to Vienna

For the sake of mold

Mold in the NV-Arena (symbolic image) - that's why Kamila Dubcova & Co. have to "flee" to Vienna.(Bild: GEPA)

For the sake of mold! St. Pölten's women's soccer team has to relocate to Vienna due to flooding. Even the mayor helps with the solution.

The lot had been so kind to St. Pölten's women: First Manchester City, then defending champion Barcelona with world footballer Aitana Bonmatí. And Hammarby as their third opponent in the group stage of the Champions League.

After the flood, the mold
But then came the floods. And now the mold. Black stains are said to be visible on the walls of the NV-Arena catacombs, and repairs will take months. A site inspection is not permitted. Too dangerous for health. Not according to the authorities, but according to the contracted company. And also UEFA, who came to take a look. No Champions League in the NV-Arena without catacombs - now the SKN women have the bad luck as tenants. Although an alternative stadium for the "premier league" has been found in the form of Austrias Generali-Arena, which was even a hot topic as a final stadium in 2020, the damage for the serial champions is huge.

President Andrea Pichler can't say exactly how much: "We can't say yet, we just want to have great games and score lots of points." The fans will even be transported to the stadium in Vienna in buses from Lower Austria, with St. Pölten's mayor Matthias Stadler also lending a hand.

Insurance issue?
However, the effort is enormous: 1500 tickets have been sold for the home game against ManCity, and even 2000 for Barça. Will the SKN be able to hold the operator of the NV-Arena, Sportzentrum NÖ, harmless? "We'll think about that, we've only known about the problem for too long. We only had the inspection on Friday," says Pichler, leaving the consequences open, "maybe it's also an insurance issue." UEFA would not have allowed containers as a substitute, so the "SKN Rush" reacted quickly - and moved to the Generali-Arena against Man City (16.10.), Barcelona (21.11.) and Hammarby (18.12.). "We want to make the best of it. So our goal now is to fill the stadium in Vienna." They succeeded once before. When there was a national record attendance of 10,051 fans at Austria v France last year.