Badalona City Council leaves 300 players without basketball

The 300 children and young people of the teams CB Sant Josep from Badalona they have had an abrupt end to the season. Overnight, and without warning, they have run out of facilities in which to carry out their activity after officials of the town hall of the city will appear first thing in the morning of this Tuesday to seal the building in which they play and train. It is the latest episode of a conflict that has not been resolved for years, aggravated since 2019 by a speculative real estate operation of the Archdiocese of Barcelona, owner of the property.

The closure of the facility leaves the athletes without activity and sows serious doubts about the future of the entity at a key moment of the season in which future plans are defined and teams for the next campaign are configured. The building’s seal arrives motivated by a sanctioning file (33990Q / 2019) opened for lack of an activity license, a situation entrenched in the history of the entity but that had not generated conflicts until the noise complaint made by a neighbor opened this process.

The file for lack of this license was opened in January 2020 by the city council but in April of this year this license was approved subject to the execution of some works contemplated in a technical project presented for this purpose. These works have not been carried out while waiting for the archbishopric to respond to a long-term rental proposal, made by the club, which allowed planning the financing. The owners have not responded to this plan and everything has stalled again.

As explained Ibon
Orrantia, president of the CB Sant Josep, “Since 2019 we have been in communication with all municipal groups, with the current sports councilor Juan Fernandez and with the mayor Xavier García Albiol and in the last meeting held a few weeks ago, the mayor told us that he was in contact with the owners and that he would present us with a proposal for continuity in the facilities ”.

Garcia Albiol it was pronounced two years ago, when he was not yet mayor and the conflict broke out, with a press conference held in front of the building and making a concrete proposal. “I am talking about the purchase of the facility, with which we would achieve that, through a series of works, suppress part of the stands and where today there is a basketball court we would have three. In this way, Sant Josep could continue to use its facility and other entities could use these facilities and solve one of the city’s endemic problems in the sports field ”.

According Orrantia, conversations with the council are held to find a solution. The City Council, meanwhile, has issued a statement this Tuesday justifying today’s action due to a complaint from a neighbor and ensuring that the club has been granted permission to carry out the conditioning works for two months and that these have not been carried out .

Meanwhile, the archbishopric, which has been responsible for the absence of an activity license in an equipment specifically intended for sports use, has not given its version but its interest is clear since it became known that it prioritizes the sale of the property for a residential project for the elderly . This speculative plan is the one behind the paralysis that affects the club, the main tenant of the facilities and one of the motors of the sporting activity of Badalona.

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