Stadium plans in Graz

“Renovation is not enough – we are rethinking Liebenau!”

At the beginning of October, the Graz city government announced plans for a large-scale renovation of the stadium in Liebenau – on Saturday (17), Sturm and GAK, who are to share a modern arena in the future, will face each other in the Graz soccer derby. The "Krone" spoke in advance with Sturm vice president and construction expert Peter Schaller about the stadium plans.

"Krone": As a construction and planning professional, you are Sturm's leading infrastructure expert and therefore also a member of the committee for the feasibility study for a new arena in Liebenau – what experience do you have in stadium construction?
Peter Schaller: I took over the Klagenfurt stadium before the European Championships during its completion. It had to be finished by 2007. At the time, there was a cooperation with a Chinese company regarding the upper tier, which was to be dismantled and reused for the Olympic Games. At the end of the day, it would have been negligent to install the Chinese steel parts. We had to find a replacement solution. It was a race against time that lasted two and a half months. Our people didn't leave the construction site until two hours before the scheduled test match between Austria and Japan. Fortunately, in retrospect, the stadium was not dismantled (laughs).