Slavia football club fights Hochtief over land parcel

The Prague football Slavia club is fighting with the German developer Hochtief over a piece of land next to Slavie's stadium in Vršovice. The club filed an injunction calling for Hochtief to clear the land, on which it was preparing to construct a 9-storey apartment building. Hochtief claims to have a long-term lease agreement for the land from its owner SK Slavia Praha, but the football club says it too signed a 99-year lease for the land in 2017. Now, a court in Prague 10 appears to have sided with the developer. "On the basis of evidence and arguments presented by us, the court has issued a ruling in which the football club's demand to clear the land was refused," says Hochtief's spokesman Michal Talian.

Slavia Prague, which lost last night at home to Chelsea in the first leg of a Europa League Cup tie, was owned in 2017 by the Chinese conglomerate CEFC. Hospodářské noviny reports that Hochtief was the general contractor in charge of the stadium's construction more than a decade ago. It writes that the for the land dates back to a financial settlement over that project.

Photo: Petr Koncal