Vienna, Austria. Thursday coincided with a very special and historic moment for Austria’s Volleyball family, namely because of the ground breaking ceremony organised in the city of Ried for the construction of a sports hall specifically designed for ball sports.
Austria’s Minister of Sport Werner Kogler was among the high-profile invitees to attend the ceremony. The arena, whose construction shall finish in just five months, will have a capacity of 1,000 seats and will cost € 2.3 million. The project stands out as an example of a resource-efficient solution for sport. The provision of such an arena will certainly help the work of the SG UVC Weberzeile Ried / Innkreis Volleyball club.
Gernot Leitner, President of the Austrian Volleyball Federation (ÖVV), was especially happy with the project: “The ÖVV has been campaigning for the provision of better indoor infrastructure for Volleyball for many years. Ried is now the first city home to a team competing in the Denizbank AG Volley League to have worked intensively on the realisation of a cost-effective sports hall, fully compliant with the requirements set for the organisation of European Cups matches. Thanks to the perseverance of the SG UVC Weberzeile Ried / Innkreis together with the ÖVV and the support of the city, state and federal government, this project can now take off. We hope that Ried will set an example for other Bundesliga locations in Austria, also for a dual use of the arena with other ball sports such as basketball and / or handball.”
