Perillo promises Center of Excellence within a year.

Goiás 247_ With the expectation of fully delivering the Sports Excellence Center within a year, Governor Marconi Perillo visited the renovation and construction works on Monday morning, accompanied by the president of Agetop, Jayme Rincón, and the vice-governor, José Eliton, as well as other authorities.

After successfully lifting the embargo imposed by the Public Prosecutor's Office on the contractor responsible, terminating the contract and formalizing a new one, the state government resumed construction 20 days ago, with a total projected investment of approximately R$ 60 million, divided between the construction of the laboratory, the water park, and the Olympic Stadium.

The first stage, for which the bidding process has already been published, is the completion of the laboratory with the volleyball and basketball courts. The resources – amounting to R$ 7,9 million – are already secured. By July 15th, the government will open bidding for the construction of the Olympic Stadium, budgeted at R$ 43 million. Agetop's forecast is that the Center of Excellence will be fully operational by July of next year. The first step towards the renovation of the site was taken during Marconi's second term, when the reconstruction works of the Olympic Stadium began.

The governor went on to explain the reasons that prevented the development of the works for several years. “When I left the government in 2006, my successor did not continue the works. Later, we had problems with an injunction from the Public Prosecutor's Office. We came to power in 2011 with a total interest in continuing, but we realized that there were difficulties regarding the contractor, who could not finish the work and also had problems with the Public Prosecutor's Office. After we managed to win in court the cancellation of the previous contract, the Public Prosecutor's Office still continued to make a series of demands regarding federal funds, until we came to the conclusion that it would be faster to break the contract with the federal government and secure resources from the state government for the completion of the work in general,” he said.

Marconi stated in a press interview that when the works are completed, the Sports Excellence Center will be a large Olympic complex, and the state will be able to participate in any Olympic competition, in addition to athletes being able to train there for the 2016 Olympic Games. "It will be one of the largest support centers for preparing athletes for the 2016 Olympics," he defined.

Racetrack

He informed that the renovation works at the Goiânia Racetrack will be divided into two stages. The first will consist of preparing the site to host national and international competitions, and the second will seek to transform the location into a large multi-purpose park for races and public services. According to him, the projects are already ready and the bidding process should take place soon, because the resources are already secured.

Marconi also said that the state government will also invest, albeit in a smaller amount of resources compared to other states, to host training sessions for the Brazilian National Team for the World Cup games. “There’s nothing that gives more visibility than having the Brazilian National Team training here. These investments need to be made; we need to work to make Goiás a reference point in Brazil, and there’s already recognition in that regard. Both the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) and the Technical Committee liked what they saw here. They liked the facilities, the support they received, and that’s what’s important,” he concluded, referring to the investments made by the state government so that Goiânia could host the Brazilian National Team’s training sessions before the Confederations Cup.