.
"NK Maribor hopes that the city councilors will agree with the proposal and that the revised budget will be adopted, so that we can carry out the complete project and that all future European matches be played in Maribor, at a completely finished stadium which the city, the fans, and everyone that is a part of our violet story, truly deserve," said the Maribor football club director Bojan Ban.
NK Maribor's press release says the club initially received information that the reconstruction proposal would envisage only two million euros for the first phase of the reconstruction, and that the project would only be partly completed. It therefore called for the proposal to be amended, for such an investment would not enable the club to continue playing European matches at the stadium, and the club's football school, which has 200 children, would not be able to operate in its present form.
According to the first proposal reconstruction stood at 9 million euros
The NK Maribor football club stresses that according to new rules set by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the Ljudski Vrt stadium's permit for organizing high-level matches expires. "After all of the interventions and reconstruction work done by the club in past years – done with a lot of enthusiasm, improvisation, extra effort and our own resources – UEFA representatives have conditionally allowed matches. However, in the future we might face a ban on all European matches in Maribor. Regarding the current state of the Ljudski Vrt stadium, we would have to move to the only other stadium in Slovenia where matches can be played. And that's in Stožice, which is inadmissible for NK Maribor, and unacceptable for the city," stressed the 14-time Slovenian football champions.