The national football team coach Slaven Bilić inspected on Tuesday the Poljud stadium to see if the football turf will be ready for the match against Greece, on September 07th, only two days after the IAAF / VTB Bank Continental Cup. For this occasion and in company of the representatives of the Organizing committee Siniša Ergotić and Ivan Veštić , he realized how much the turf in the stadium “Poljud beauty” can be damaged by hammer throws.
- We still have enough time to make a decision, but the people who maintain and take care of the turf insist that we will be able to play the football match. We will engage all our experts to see how much the hammer throw really destroys the turf and then we will timely decide. Split is in serious competition for hosting the match with Greece and during the qualification we will surely play in this stadium. I personally do not believe the bad statistics of football matches played in this Poljud stadium; the matches played were very hard and we mainly had problems in the preparation phases, i.e. the fuss that is created in connection with our national football team – emphasizes Bilić.
He praised the cooperation with the leading officials from the IAAF / VTB Bank Continental Cup whom he is permanently in contact with.
- The cooperation is excellent and people from athletics like Siniša Ergotić and Ivan Veštić have full understanding and are always ready for discussion and finding satisfactory solutions for all parties. You must know that during the two days of the Continental Cup hammers will be thrown a hundred times. Anyway, we will see what happens, we are in no hurry to make the decision – added the well informed coach of the national football team.
Since the match with Greece is planned for the beginning of September, Bilić and his coaching team would like to prepare for this important match in Postira, on island Brač.
- Split and Postira have been selected for the preparation locations because both would give us the needed peace, like we have it in Čatež, when we prepare for matches in the Maksimir stadium in Zagreb. I would not like that the situation is repeated when we played against the Netherlands and stayed in hotel Park, where I hardly saw my players for three days.
Poljud stadium is on top of the list as venue for this match, also because of the draw for the qualifications. Therefore I repeat again - we plan to play in this venue, what we confirmed even before the problems with Maksimir became clear.
The CEO of IAAF / VTB Bank Continental Cup, Mr. Siniša Ergotić stressed that the organizer will do their best so Croatia can host the Greek national team in Poljud stadium on September 07th.
- We are ready to do everything possible to establish maximum and ideal conditions for our national team members to play this important match. From our side we don’t see any problems whatsoever and the final decision is in the hands of the Croatian Football Federation, precisely the coach of the national team and his associates. Either way, we would like to see that the Poljud stadium continues hosting more major sports events following the Continental Cup and I believe that we will maintain our great cooperation with the officials from football .
IAAF / VTB Continental Cup will be held on
September 04th – 05th, while Croatia plays against Greece on September 07th and only for days later the national football team plays in Latvia.