09 | Identity, disturbance and the value of San Siro stadium

1. introducing san siro THE LOCATION

controversies through time..

identity, disturbance, & the value of san siro

group 09 10 june 2019

index_ 1. introducing San siro: Location, debate & the controversial timeline 2. san siro’s controversies: 2.1 to whom it belongs 2.2 the noise issue 2.3 the debate of the demolition 3. actors 4. conclusion 5. references

Submitted By: Aysel Kapsiz Giorgio Rubino Nada El-Ahwal Youmna Abdalla

1. introducing san siro THE LOCATION San Siro, also known as the Giuseppe Meazza stadium named after the great Italian football player, it’s located in the middle of San siro district in the City of Milan and it’s the home for two of the most famous football teams AC Milan and the Internazionale. The stadium is considered one of the most iconic landmarks in the city. It has a seating capacity of almost 80,000 people making it one of the largest stadiums in

Europe and the largest in Italy.

On the other hand, apart from the football activities, the stadium is considered to be one of the biggest avenues for important events especially concerts taking place in Milan. Also, one of the must seen spots for tourists not just football fans. All of these factors made this huge infrastructural landmark have a great value and an iconic image in people’s minds.

A satellite map showing the location of the stadium Source: Google Maps

1. introducing san siro THE DEBATE The iconic value of this landmark made it very hard for government, people and residents to deal with it as a normal architectural element in their urban life. However, its great value, the San siro stadium has caused a lot of issues and most of them still ongoing until now either to football teams or the municipality of Milan or especially for the Residents who are living near to it. These issues made people question a lot whether it’s worth it or not and leaving them clueless most of the time about what should be done. As shown in the figure below, because of the

stadium the neighbourhood became more crazy and chaotic, more vibrant and dynamic. This image was even reflected in the Internazionale Anthem ‘PAZZA’ which means crazy in italian. This made us question ourselves, what are really the main controversies that could be caused by the location of the stadium? Does the stadium have the ability to change the whole neighbourhood or even the whole city?? And in which ways can it affect the surrounding urban environment? and what about the demolition debate?? is it related to any of these?....

Art Collage showing the controversies and madness of San Siro Source: The group

1. introducing san siro THE CONTROVERSIAL TIMELINE After discussing that there’s a lot of controversies caused by the Iconic value and the location of the stadium. And after questioning the reasons, causes and effects. It was observed that beyond these plenty of issues there were three main controversies that for us were really interesting to study, not only because of their importance, but also because we found out that they’re affecting each other somehow or in a way or another. These three Contro-

versies can be concluded in: 1. Controversy about the belonging of the stadium whether it’s for AC Milan or the Internazionale, 2. the Controversy of Noise that the stadium causes it to the surrounding neighbourhood. and the last one is 3. the Controversy of Demolishing the stadium and relocate it in a new place. Each of these controversies will be discussed later in details and also how they’re linked all toghether.

belonging issue 1947-ongoing

Mainly caused by the issue of ownership of the stadi-um should it be for the Internazionale or for AC Milan.

noise issue

1980’s-ongoing

demolition issue 2019

The issue of demolishing the old San siro to build a new one because of a lot of concerns.

The noise caused by the football game and music events made the neighbourhood more loud and chaotic which was not pleasent for a lot of people.

2. san siro’s controversies TO WHOM IT BELONGS TO WHOM BELONGS SAN SIRO Formally speaking, since the 1930s the stadium in San Siro is owned by the Municipality of Milan.

Having specified that, there is a controversy ongoing among both FC Internazionale and AC Milan fans about who is the real owner of the stadium, in football terms.

This controversy has its roots way before 1925, when the stadium was first built by the AC Milan president of the time, Mr. Pirelli.

AC Milan was the first of the two Milanese teams to be constituted, in 1899. FC Internazionale was created instead about a decade after, in 1908. The team was created because the AC Milan society was not in favor of having foreign players in its team. The fact that FC Internazionale was constituted after AC Milan makes AC Milan’s

fans claiming that they are the “first team of Milan”, and so they should be the exclusives owners of San Siro Stadium.

This, united with the fact that San Siro stadium was effectively an AC Milan’s property before the mid 1930s, creates some issues with the FC Internazionale fans, especially in the recent years, when AC Milan was talking about building its own stadium in the Portello Area.

The FC Internazionale’s new property stated that if AC Milan went on with their stadium project, could have become the new owner of San Siro.

This controversy is still going on today, and supposedly it will never finishes, at least until one or both of the two societies will build its own stadium, leaving San Siro.

2. san siro’s controversies TO WHOM IT BELONGS

2. san siro’s controversies THE NOISE ISSUE The controversy about noise issue in the San Siro has turned into a contentious problem since the big concerts started to take place in San Siro Stadium, in 1980s. After 80s, San Siro stadium hosted big concerts, was became a symbolic

concert place for the international names. However, the residents who live around San Siro stadium started to complain about noise during these big events. Since 1980, debates about San Siro’s effect on residents still going on.

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To be able represent themselves better in their communication process with municipality, San Siro residents established two committees: Anti-Noise Committee and “San-Siro Vivibile” Committee. By means of these associations, residents could able to make several proposals about preventing noise problem. In their proposals, they wanted events to ended up before 11pm and soundproof system for the stadium. Additionally, during this time period of almost 40 years, municipality also took same steps by listening the concerns of residents. In 2008, some families host technicians during the concert for the measurement of decibels. However, on the other hand San-Siro Vivible’s responsible Silvina Gabusi mentions that “It is not just the question of decibels, it is the problem of vibrations. Every time there is a concert it seems to be an earthquake.” Especially after this vibration concern, in 2009, mayor of Milan Letizia Moratt, intervened the process by asking local health authorities to review decibel limits set for the upcoming U2 and Madonna concerts at that time. By this time, the regions environmental agency, ARPA also announced that sound volume shouldn’t exceed the average of 80 decimals.

2. san siro’s controversies THE NOISE ISSUE Apart from, residents’ committees and health authorities there is of course another side of the coin. Promoter of concerts and matches defending the idea of hosting events by saying if one buys a house close to one of the most capacious stadiums in Europe, it is normal that between sporting events and concerts this area will be noisy. The most reasonable argument of promoters is that they claim the real problem in the stadium is not the noise it-

self, it’s the effect of involving the public when over 70.000 people start to sing. They say ““You can’t block the music because of 15 people and above all you can’t bring a city to its knees. They are 12-15 hours of concerts in a year.

And they are also the highest moment in international music that finds hospitality in Milan. Now U2 and Madonna will arrive. We cannot be found unprepared for this appointment “.

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During all these arguments, resident’s proposal is to keep third ring of the stadium closed during the big concerts by limiting the capacity of stadium to 10.000 fewer people. The further conflict between San Siro Stadium owning by municipality and residents continued even involvement of the legal processes which was resulted in favor’s of residents by charging the Bruce Springsteen concert disturbance of public peace as you can see in the below article headlines.

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To end up, noise problem of San Siro has been an unending, contentious and stormy controversy involving a lot different parties.

On one side residents are claiming the harms of the high level of noise’s during the events and matches to their mental and physical health by proposing different solutions, while mainly claiming the cancellation of big concerts to hold in San Siro. On the other hand, Municipality gives right on the issue of health effect while never approaches to the solutions of cancellation of concerts as it will affect its economic earning. Municipality actually approaches to the problem mainly by delivering free-tickets to the neighbourhood to stop their complaint about the event. But it seems, this solution also doesn’t work for the residents, Anti-Noise Committee and San-Siro Vivi bile Associations who are strongly mention that decimal limits should be again set for the upcoming events.

2. san siro’s controversies THE NOISE ISSUE 1.

Below, you can see that in the headlines of the different time periods, the unending contradictions about San Siro about noise is reflected to the newspapers:

2. san siro’s controversies THE DEBATE OF THE DEMOLITION Another main and most recent controversy is about demolishing the San Siro stadium. The San siro has been home to both AC Milan and the Internazionale since 1947 and although the drop happened for both teams in the last few years. Their shared home is still one of the greatest avenues. However, this iconic figure may not be around for much longer because unfortunately there are many debates on tearing it down. AC Milan has been leading talks about bu-

ilding a new stadium right next to the Old San Siro in the parking lot (seen in the figure below) as the club is keen to move on and have its own stadium. AC Milan at first proposed that the new stadium will be owned by its club and the Old one ownership’s goes to Internazionale where both can re-design the stadium by their identity colors and logos.

PROPOSED SITE A satellite map showing the location of the new proposed site Source: Google Maps

2. san siro’s controversies THE DEBATE OF THE DEMOLITION However, this initial proposal was not allowed by the municipality since there was an economic dimension to this proposal. Fox sports recalls the mayor explaining how it would be hard to have two adjacent stadiums in one area.

This triggered the second proposal of both clubs to share the new stadium and demolish oldSan Siro in order to have a more modern up to the world’s qulaification stadium. As the Ac Milan President says “Both Milan and Inter have discussed the possibility of leaving the legendary stadium, with many fearing it simply is not good enough to compete with some of the top stadiums in the world.” This triggered the most recent controversy about whether to demolish the stadium or abandon the idea of a new one. Now both clubs are convinced to abandon any project to restructure the current stadium and they both agree on sharing a new modern well equipped stadium to be opened in 2023. Due to the previously discussed issue by the mayor about the problem of having 2 adjacent stadiums, old San Siro should close the gates in 2022, given that the new stadium should welcome Milan and Inter starting from the 2022/2023 season and thus be demolished afterwards.

As a result, a “No Demolition San Siro” committee was born, which aims to collect 15 thousand signatures necessary to request a referendum against the demolition of San Siro. Not only this, but also the social media started to be concerned about the issue and created facebook groups named “ Non Abbattiamo SAN SIRO - We dont take down San Siro” and surveys started to surf the internet on wether people are for or against the demolition.

The municipality as well is not happy about demolishing the stadium because of two aspects, first as all other anti-demolishings agree about is that it is history and should not be touched even if it is degrading. Another point for the municipality isthe economic dimension where now it owns the old stadium and therefore recieves revenue for it. However, if it is torn down and a new one is constructed, it will be owned by the clubs themselves leading to a great loss in the municipality’s economic status.

2. san siro’s controversies THE DEBATE OF THE DEMOLITION These are some examples showing the controversy of this issue on the Social media and its impact on the people and ther responses towards such a huge thing.

The disputation is still ongoing between the municipality and the two clubs where the latter is presentng their different proposals on the new stadium and waiting for the municipality’s permission about the issue of demolishing and relocation. This debate will take a very long time to be solved as San siro is not any regular stadium and many of the citizens and fans are doing their best to dismiss the demolition. So let us wait and see how this will settle and hopefully it would be for the best of all acotrs’ satisfaction.

3. the actors PEOPLE INVOLVED Anti-Noise Committe

San Siro Livable Committee

Promoter of Events

ARPA

Regions Environmental Agency

Residents

Municipality

Codacons

CONTROVERSY 2 BELONGING

AC Milan

FC Internazionale Milano

Giulio Benetti, Prosecutor Citizens

CONTROVERSY 1 NOISE CONTROVERSY 3 DEMOLISHMENT

Supporters of Both Team

ACTORS DIAGRAM SAN SIRO 1. Municipality of Milan

11. Promoter of Events

2. AC Milan

12. San Siro Livable Committee

3. FC Internazionale 4. Supporters of both teams 5. Citizens 6. Residents of the San Siro neighbourhood 7. Guilio Benetti, Prosecutor 8. Codacons 9. ARPA 10. Anti-noise committee

4. conclusion ABOUT THE 3 ISSUES After discussing the main three controversies present about San Siro, it can be concluded that San Siro travels within different debates throughout history starting from the question of belonging moving to the issue of noise distraction and ending with the demolition and allocation argument. However, if we look deeper, these three issues are highly connected and are affected by one another. But, on the other hand, it was found that not only San Siro stadium is suffering from this kind of controversies, but also the Yellopark Stadium in Nantes, France is having more or less the same issue. This stadium is belonged to FC Nantes team and there was a huge debate about the demolition and re-locating of the stadium in a nearby land. Adding to this, what made the controversy really interesting is that the mayor approved the construction of the new stadium without the non-sportive part, however, she refused to demolish the old stadium. This conflict made the public really confused about what’s the purpose of having two stadium really close to each other. So, it was obvious that constructions related to sport activities have a real broad aspect beyond the practice of sport itself.

But, what’s unique about San Siro stadium is that it traveled through these 3 controversies which are related to each other somehow forming a very unique controversial timeline for the stadium.

4. conclusion ABOUT THE 3 ISSUES Going to depth to the relationship between San Siro’s 3 Controversies, the belonging problem highly created conflicts between AC Milan and Intern on how the stadium would look like, what colors should the seats be and who should have the priority to organize matches. Although this argument was long ago; however, it eventually led to the idea of AC Milan wanting to construct a new stadium to be owned by the club and designed according to the club’s colors. At this point, we see a conflict that arises from the subject of ownership.

The construction of a new stadium did not only be proposed due to the belonging debate but also because of safety and security issues. The extreme amount of vibrations produced in the stadium in the time of a concert or a match deteriorates the structure and makes it more vulnerable to accidents in the upcoming years. Moreover, it is also directly connected with the noise problem. They state that due to the vibrations, their windows shaking like an earthquake is happening. Although, it can be said that the idea of seeing San Siro as a masterpiece is a common remark, they sometimes believe it would be calmer to live without it. Promoter of concerts defending stadium with the idea of all around the world it is intuitive notion that the houses close to the stadium cannot be silent and quite by its nature.

Additionally, the idea of demolishing the old stadium and allocating the activities to a new one is somehow a consequence of the prior debates about San Siro regarding who is more rightful to the stadium and regarding the risk of noise and vibrations on the structure and the context of the stadium.

This derives us to the interesting and unique characteristic about San Siro, where it is not only an iconic figure of football in Milano but is also a debatable structure that involves a lot of actors of the community in deciding its destiny and its influence in the upcoming years.

4. references https://www.facebook.com/Non-Abbattiamo-SAN-SIRO2402227576457185/?ref=br_rs http://www.comune.milano.it/wps/portal/ist/it/news/salastampa/comunicati_stampa/archivio_2018/comunicati_luglio_2018/guaineri_tasca_lavori_stadio_meazza https://www.money.it/san-siro-stadio-comune-milano-no-demolizione-sindaco-sala-si-ristrutturazione-inter-milan https://www.money.it/san-siro-demolizione-inter-dice-si-nuovo-stadio-milan-comune-milano-2022-serie-a https://www.calcioefinanza.it/2019/03/04/nuovo-stadio-san-siro-progetto-milan-inter/ https://www.ilgiorno.it/milano/cronaca/san-siro-1.4512730 http://www.comune.milano.it/wps/portal/ist/it/news/primopiano/tutte_notizie/turismo_sport_tempolibero/san_siro_accordi_stadio https://www.milanotoday.it/attualita/vibrazioni-stadio-san-siro.html https://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2019/03/28/news/demolire_lo_stadio_di_san_ siro_l_ipotesi_preoccupa_il_cio_per_le_olimpiadi-222705358/ https://www.foxsports.it/2019/04/04/serie-a-sala-san-siro-addio-inter-milan-nuovo-stadio/ https://www.calciomercato.com/en/news/ac-milan-and-inter-reach-agreement-sansiro-set-for-demolition-23940 https://www.90min.com/posts/6333970-ac-milan-president-confirms-san-siromust-be-demolished-to-build-beautiful-new-stadium https://www.calciomercato.com/en/news/san-siro-to-be-demolished-and-rebuiltby-2023-59831 https://www.givemesport.com/1463946-san-siro-likely-to-be-demolished-as-ac-milan-and-inter-prepare-to-rebuild-iconic-stadium

http://stadiumdb.com/news/2018/11/nantes_two_stadia_side_by_side_ whats_the_point