Juventus has got the biggest and final lump of cash for its future home, the first stadium to be built and owned by an Italian soccer club, Chairman Giovanni Cobolli Gigli said Friday.
Italy's Sporting Credit Institute has given the Turin giants a 50-million-euro 12-year loan for the new stadium, Italy's first to be conceived along British or American lines.
Cobolli Gigli said the last 50 million euros - about half the total cost - ''represents the closure of a complicated financial operation'' which would allow the club to build the ground without diverting resources from the team.
Packed with family-friendly, business-geared and security elements that will discourage hooligans, the 105-million-euro stadium is scheduled to open in 2011.
It has also been designed to bring the playing field much closer to the fans and help generate the kind of atmosphere that Italians often envy of Premier League grounds like Old Trafford.
''Fans will live the thrill of our victories as real protagonists,'' Cobolli Gigli said, pointing out that supporters with ringside seats will be just nine metres (30 feet) away from their heroes.
''I'm going to keep on playing so I can be there when it opens in 2011,'' quipped club icon Alessandro Del Piero, 34.
Del Piero and another Juve legend, Giampiero Boniperti, have been chosen to inaugurate the ground in three years' time.
Executives from other clubs at the presentation ceremony said they were envious.
''AC Milan is dreaming about a ground like this too,'' said Milan CEO Adriano Galliani.
The stadium will have eight restaurants, 24 bars, 459 press seats and 84 'sky boxes' for high-paying corporate guests.
''We will have a facility that will be open seven days a week, safe, free of architectural barriers and ideal to spend time in with the family,'' said Juve CEO Jean-Claude Blanc.
Italian Soccer Federation chief Giancarlo Abete called the stadium ''a major new dawn for Italian soccer''.
Soccer League chief Antonio Matarrese said it was ''a grand initiative''.
The club and Italian Soccer Federation officials said the stadium should lead the way for other clubs, like Lazio in Rome, who are trying to open their own grounds instead of leasing them from city authorities.
Experts say owning grounds, as in other countries, gives club officials a higher stake in protecting them from hooliganism.
The new Juve ground, which will be named after one of its many private sponsors, is rising on the ashes of the old Stadio Delle Alpi stadium in the northern part of the city.
The 40,700-seater venue represents a sharp drop in capacity from the 70,000 of the often-half-empty Delle Alpi.
From 1990 to August 2006 Juve played their home matches at the Delle Alpi, a stadium they were forced to move away from due to restructuring during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.
The club decided to move to the nearby Stadio Olimpico, a ground that holds a mere 27,500 spectators and a home venue they currently share with their cross-city rivals Torino.
