Rome is set to move the Champions League Final Festival away from the Colosseum despite UEFA chief Michel Platini's objections, city officials confirmed Tuesday.
Mayor Gianni Alemanno said a solution would be unveiled on Thursday after talks with UEFA and the Italian Culture Ministry.
''We're trying to solve the problem...We'll announce the solution at a press conference the day after tomorrow,'' Alemanno said Tuesday.
On Monday the mayor ruled out the Colosseum despite months of planning, saying it could only be used for ''exceptional events''.
Platini insisted Tuesday that it was too late to move the May 23-27 event from the Colosseum to the Circus Maximus after a last-minute alert about the well-known stability problems of Rome's best-known monument.
''What do they mean, Circus Maximus, there's no way we're budging from the Colosseum'' he told the La Repubblica daily.
''It's too late. I'm sorry''.
The former Juventus legend said switching sites less than three weeks before the Festival ''would cause us a great deal of problems''.
Culture Undersecretary Francesco Giro said Rome would find ''an alternative that will ensure the promoters of the Champions Festival can use the image of the Colosseum''.
He recalled that the first three editions of the fest had been staged at the Trocadero in Paris, the old Olympic Stadium in Athens and Red Square in Moscow, ''three very big spaces which don't present logistical difficulties with regard to heritage safeguards, public safety and movement of persons''.
The Colosseum, on the other hand, had all these problems.
''It is unique and hard to compare with the venues cited by Platini''.
In demanding that Rome had to stick to the Colosseum as agreed, Platini stressed that the previous editions went off safely and with no property damage despite the thousands of people who flocked to them.
UEFA's organisational chief Giorgio Marchetti echoed Platini in telling La Repubblica: ''It's too late now, what are we supposed to do? We've always done what Rome city council asked of us, we've been working together since October 24''.
At the weekend archeological experts warned that the two soccer fields to be set up near the Colosseum, one for Futsal (five-a-side) and one for football, posed fresh stability threats to the 2,000-year-old monument which has been shored up and protected from traffic in recent years.
As well as the two soccer tourneys, the Champions Festival, a four-day bash leading up the Champions League Final on May 27, will display the trophy to the public and culminate in a half-hour show in a purpose-built dome showing sounds and images from the competition's history.
More than 220,000 people flocked to Red Square in the run-up to the 2008 final where Manchester United beat Chelsea on penalties.
