The Biggest Problems Are Dom sportova And Gripe

Croatian Handball Association Vice-President Zoran Gobac explained the situation on preparations for the handball championship in 2009.

After numerous media speculation on the delay of the construction of world handball championship sports halls, and the possible withdrawal from of the championship hosting Croatia, Zoran Gobac pointed out the main problems:

-We have 15 more days to finally decide and if this goes towards the Dom sportova sports hall then we must obtain certain approvals from the World Handball Federation. I honestly do not know how they plan to organise it, because the World Table-Tennis Championship is in May, and the European Skating Championship in January next year, therefore I really do not understand this. Construction of a new sports hall certainly is the more favourable option. For now we are not facing withdrawal of the championship, but if we do not have solutions in some additional time in which they estimate a sports hall cannot be constructed or adapted, then the worst could happen to us. The sports hall construction must begin 17 months before the beginning of the world championship at the latest. In this situation, we cannot do much, we are hostages here, completely helpless. Mr. Zoran Antun Petrovic is a very smart man, he knows everything. They are surely familiar with all candidacy details in his agency. We, who do it, objectively do not know anything. All city government departments gave decisions how everything would be done within the set dead-line. I am interested why they all waited for the dead-line of reaching the decision. They are not building the sports hall for the world handball championship only, but for other purposes as well. This means that from the moment they issued out permits, I exclude Zagreb because the Handball home is already being built, other cities should have commenced with the construction.

A special situation, according to Gobac, occurred in Split, where our handball players would have to play, and Gripe sports hall does not satisfy this need.

-We were at meetings twice in Split and explicitly said Gripe sports hall satisfies, with adaptation, the need for the group to play, but not the Croatian team, because surely, we do not wish to play in front of 4,000 people if we can play in front of 12,000 people. We would rather play in Zadar in front of 7,500 than 4,000 in Split, because we believe it is only right for our team to play in Dalmatia and we will enable this for the people, but we must have an adequate sports hall. We will try to make the first group play in Dalmatia, where Croatia will play, but the hall must be adequate. We would love to play in Split, but if the hall is 12,000 or 7,500 in Zadar, than Gripe is out of the question.

As a measurement, Gobac took our candidacy for the European Football Championship in 2012.

European Football Championship is precisely 11 to 12 times more expensive. And it is not fair that the media should publish the amount of two billion kuna. All our halls together will not cost more than a billion and 200 million kuna. The Handball Home at Svetice is undisputed, the city is constructing it and it costs exactly 174 million kuna, and not 174 million euros, as it was written.

The biggest stumbling-stone is surely to construct the Zagreb Arena or renovate Dom sportova:

-At this moment, the only question is of Zagreb Arena, because without it the semi-finals and finals cannot be played, because both require a minimum of 15,000 seats. Dom sportova sports hall reconstruction project is being done for 6 to 7 months now, and we are familiarised with it, however it also causes certain earthquakes with it. It means the re-location of all lessees, athletes, recreation ice. Also, I do not know where we will play for the next year. The construction of the Handball Home has been awaited for much too long, delayed for two years. If it were constructed in time, we would have had some possibilities. According to them, if Dom sportova was to be renovated, it would seat 16,400 spectators, which satisfies the criteria, but the only question is of statics and there is a stream down there, how to bridge it, I honestly do not know. But, in the end, I believe the best solution will be found, in which we should not actually go into, so it does not turn out we deal with construction or planning.

Gobac confirmed the selector post is not questionable:

-We will decide on coach Lino Cervar`s report during the Association’s Managing board, which will surely be accepted, without any problems. Cervar absolutely remains as the coach and this is not questionable at all. The fifth place for us, with the 9-1 ratio is excellent. Probably, if it were 7-3 or 7-4, I would think differently, but one bad day should not affect the entire handball climate, especially of the media which positioned themselves to ravage the handball team, which is the only positive thing in our sport, next to the football team. Such humiliation is wrong and conduct towards people who carried the fame of our country should be more disciplined- concluded Gobac.