Beitar Jerusalem football club owner Arcadi Gaydamak has bought the club’s training ground in the city’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood for $30 million. However, the club’s management believes that conditions on the deal, including building permits for the site, could ultimately prevent the deal from being closed.
When Gaydamak bought the club for NIS 35 million in September 2005, he promised to vacate the training ground, owned by Neot Bait Vagan Ltd., by mid-2006. In recent months, after it became clear that no alternative training grounds could be found, and that negotiations for sites in Maaleh Adumim, Abu Ghosh, and in the Kiryat Menachem neighborhood were still in the preliminary stages, Gaydamak decided to buy the Bayit Vegan site.
Even though Gaydamak promised that the club would continue to use the training grounds, he refused to sign a check without seeing building permits for the land. In July 2006, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Commission objections subcommittee approved Neot Bait Vagan’s plan to build 462 housing units on the club’s training grounds. However, the approval is subject to a number of conditions that may not materialize.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 5, 2007
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