Dead field

"Zenith" in the field of his new stadium (he passed the club to the management) has not yet emerged. "We had to do the lesson this week, but unfortunately, while the conditions there are not suitable for training," the coach of the club Mircea Lucescu, known for his demanding attitude to the quality of the stadium coverage, told Sport Express on April 14.

The first reports that the lawn on the most famous long-term Petersburg is in a terrible state, appeared in social networks in early April. The photos show: the grass has turned yellow, there are numerous bald spots on the field. The management of Zenit was forced to admit: the field is in an unfavorable condition. "That football field, which was created by stadium contractors, it died," the director general of Zenit, Maxim Mitrofanov, told Fontanka on April 11. - The engineering systems of the field do not work completely and are not handed over ... Our field does not have enough air. The grass is bad. "

The Commission for the certification of stadiums of the RFU on April 13 gave permission to the football club Zenit to hold official matches of the Russian championship at the St. Petersburg stadium (so the stadium will be called until the end of the 2018 World Cup, then the name Krestovsky will be returned to it). However, even this commission acknowledged that there are numerous complaints about the arena, obliging the club to bring the stadium to its normal state by April 22 - the date of the first match of the team at the new stadium.

In accordance with the requirements of FIFA at the stadium, where games will be held under the auspices of the international federation, at least three official games of the local championship must be played. It is necessary to test the performance and security of all arena systems in conditions comparable to the Cup games of the confederation. Even during the last FIFA inspection in St. Petersburg in February 2017, the head of the organizing committee "Russia-2018" Alexei Sorokin guaranteed that in April-May such games will be played on "Krestovsky". The Confederations Cup-2017 will be held in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi and Kazan on June 17 - July 2 this year.

As RBC explained to the agronomist of one of the Moscow football stadiums, "even the best field can be ruined in three days." According to him, there can be many reasons, for example, incorrect agricultural practices. "Weather conditions are also very important," he adds. "The field is a living organism." To give an accurate assessment of what is happening on the "Krestovsky", says an interlocutor of RBC, it is necessary to take soil samples, to check how the lawn care was carried out: "Maybe people just went out on the field and put on an infection with shoes".

However, the main agronomist of Zenit, Konstantin Kreminsky, is sure that it is not in weather conditions, but in the contractor hired by the previous general contractor, Inzhtransstroy SPb (in August 2016, he was replaced by Metrostroy). Mention Kreminsky and the name of that contractor is the company "Bamard." "For nine months ... aeration has not been carried out once. In addition, the contractor who hired the city, poorly prepared the field for the winter - no treatment with plant protection products was made. " And when the retractable field was pushed inside the bowl at the end of February and the snow melted, the lawn was spoiled. "We saw various fungal diseases, a lot of mold," Zenit agronomist sums up.

Small "trough"

The contract for the creation of a field for Krestovsky Bumard was received in the spring of 2016, having won a tender announced by the company Inzhtransstroy SPb. According to a representative of one of the companies that participated in the tender, all the major players of the market wanted to work at the largest arena of the market - Russian "Interstroystroy", "Sport and Co", "Protsion", "Bamard", British company SIS, Slovak Engo. "This is a very attractive and status contract," - says the source of RBC, estimating the cost of works on the design and installation of such a turn-key lawn of € 1.8-3 million.

All tender documentation, as well as the conditions offered by the winner, is a commercial secret. "Inzhtransstroy SPb" and "Bamard" to answer questions about the value of the contract refused.

The representative of the tender company claims that the problems with the field were predictable. And the whole market knew about it, including the contractor company, he says.

"The organizer of the tender - the general contractor for the construction of the stadium" Inzhtransstroy SPb "in the terms of reference indicated the parameters that initially made the implementation of the work difficult to achieve," - says one of the interlocutor of RBC. The main problem was the depth of the so-called trough, in which a lawn with all "internal engineering" is located. "Pie" of the standard field (grass and a minimum of three layers of sand and rubble with communications providing drainage and heating - RBC) has a depth of 45 cm, in the technical specification for "St. Petersburg" was 40 cm, - says the source of RBC. "This requires a non-standard, even unique solution."

According to the source, the companies participating in the competition paid attention to this, but the parameters of the specification remained unchanged. The source of RBC in Inzhtransstroi SPb assures us that it was impossible to change the specification: "The technical parameters, including the depth of the trough, were approved by the customer in St.Petersburg within the whole project, and it was impossible to change anything. In the project, all sizes and parameters of the field were registered. Taking into account the fact that the field was planned as a complex sliding structure, it was impossible to change the design parameters, the same depth, so we worked within the framework of the agreed project. "

According to the interlocutor in Inzhtransstroy SPb, the company Bumard offered a sound technical solution to this problem, which was accepted.

Contractor with communications

The source of RBC, familiar with the details of the choice of the contractor for the lawn Krestovsky, said that "Bamard" "lobbied at the highest level." "The Ministry of Sport has been cooperating with Bamard for a long time on the program for the construction of fields with artificial lawns, and Mutko personally recommended clubs and regional authorities building new stadiums to use the services of this Russian company," he said. Obtain confirmation of this information, RBC failed. In the Ministry of Transport to the request of RBC has not yet responded.

"Bamard" is one of the largest Russian manufacturers of floor coverings for business centers, cinemas, hotels. The company is indeed one of the five largest suppliers of sports coatings, confirmed RBC representative of another large company with a similar specialization. As follows from the data of the SPARK database, "Bamard" actively participates in tenders for the conclusion of state contracts, mainly for the supply and installation of artificial fields. Since 2013, the company has won 79 tenders for state contracts for the amount of 1.9 billion rubles. According to the website of Bamarda, the company has supplied more than 70 full-size artificial football fields to sports facilities in different regions of Russia.

However, with natural lawns, the company dealt only in a few cases. "They mainly deal with artificial football fields, multifunctional sports grounds - for basketball, volleyball, handball. Natural lawns for football - this is not their main business, "- said the representative of another player of this market. The official website of Bamard states that the company has been laying natural fields on three major projects - at the Lokomotiv stadium in Cherkizovo, at the Petrovsky stadium in St. Petersburg, and at the Khimki Arena in the Moscow region.

Over the past three years, the company also won tenders for the reconstruction of the stadiums "Chaika" and "Lokomotiv" in Voronezh (12 million rubles), sites in Samara (the reserve field of the stadium "Metallurg", 44.9 million rubles), the stadium "Trud" In Togliatti (76 million rubles.), As well as the creation of a lawn at the stadium "Central" in Yekaterinburg. The stadium in the Urals, like the lawn in St. Petersburg, will host the 2018 World Cup games. The remaining mentioned fields will be training for the teams participating in the mundialya. According to the representative of "Bamard", the company also laid natural lawns in Astrakhan (stadium "Volgar") and Krasnodar (stadium "Central"). "If we did not have the necessary competence, no one would have trusted us with a lawn in St. Petersburg," he said.

The field in Yekaterinburg began to equip on April 1, the first grass sowing will take place on July 1. The official deadline for the entire stadium is 31 December 2017, and the first matches are scheduled for April-May 2018.

According to the media, the company was laying a natural lawn in Kazan at the "Kazan Arena", but there were also problems with it. Finalists of the Russian Cup in 2016 - "Zenith" and CSKA Moscow - were forbidden to conduct pre-match training on the field, in order not to "kill" the lawn. After the match in May 2016, the lawn at the stadium was decided to be remade - and this was entrusted to another company. In "Bamard" the "loss of Kazan" is associated with the change of leadership in the local football club "Rubin". "The new general director of the club has already worked with another company for laying the lawn, he instructed to rearrange the field at the Kazan Arena," he said.

Lawnless lawn

The general director of Bamard, Alexander Prytkov, told RBC that when the Krestovsky field was handed over, all the necessary engineering systems were in working order, and the stadium staff had everything they needed to maintain the field. "The question is not the technology of sowing a lawn; In many respects the situation depends on the quality and correctness of the application of agrotechnical measures at these facilities, "he said.

This statement contradicts the statement of Zenit's agronomist, who, judging by his words, is sure that until the very last moment, that is until the end of February, Bamard had to answer for the quality of the lawn. Prytkov confirms that this was the case, but he does not agree with the conclusion of a football club employee. "In June of 2016 we sowed a football field, in September we transferred it to a contractor. But after that, according to the contract, we served him - there is a magazine with a schedule of fertilizing, watering, - says Prytkov. - Wintering lawn in the street is normal practice, the grass can withstand frosts and in minus 20 degrees. "

According to Prytkov, the lawn after wintering is in a satisfactory condition. The visible shortcomings of the cover are a natural consequence of the winter, and the words of agronomist Zenit, the general director of Bamard, explains by the desire of the football club to "be reinsured". "Given that the stadium will host the Cup of Confederations, Zenit does not want to take responsibility for the state of the lawn, it's a political issue," said RBC Prytkov. According to him, the company has the results of independent examinations, which show that there is no fungus and mold after the wintering of the lawn in the soil of the new stadium.

Problem stadium

Construction of the new stadium "Zenith" on Krestovsky Island began in 2007. The client of the construction was the mayor's office of St. Petersburg. Initially, the cost of construction was estimated at 14 billion rubles., And the stadium was promised to be put into operation in 2009.

However, the project and its budget were subsequently revised several times. As a result, "Krestovsky" has become one of the most expensive stadiums in the world and the most expensive in the history of Russia. By the time of delivery, its value was about 44 billion rubles.

This amount will increase exactly, recognize in the "Zenith", which took control of the stadium. The amount of additional costs depends on the scale of the problems, including the lawn.

Zenit CEO Maxim Mitrofanov said in an interview with Fontanka that Zenit had already invested 1 billion rubles in the "completion" of its new stadium, and according to the estimates of the football club, in the first two years of operation, the club's budget would require spending 5 , 5 billion rubles. To bring the stadium in perfect condition. "We are ready to bring it to mind and plan to eventually make the house" Zenith ", but we understand that objectively this will not happen conditionally before the 2019/20 season," Mitrofanov said.

Replacement of the lawn with "Krestovsky", if it is really needed, can cost "Zenith" the full cost of its development and installation, that is, in the amount of up to € 3 million, a representative of one of the companies that participated in the tender for the delivery of lawns. However, he could not name the exact amount. "It is not exactly known what needs to be corrected," he says. "A football field is not only a lawn with grass, but also internal engineering communications, several complex drainage layers, their status can not be judged from photographs."

The representative of another company - participant of the tender for the delivery of the lawn Krestovsky says that it is theoretically possible to lay the field together with all internal communications in an insufficiently deep "trough", but this carries potential risks. "You see, there are standard technological solutions for laying football lawns that are used all over the world and for which we can guarantee the high-quality functioning of all systems with due care," RBC's interlocutor explains. - For sure, you can squeeze the "pie" and in a not deep enough capacity, but, firstly, adapting technologies to non-standard sizes will cost more, and secondly, no one knows how to behave such a unique lawn in the process of exploitation: maybe all Will be in order, and can, it is necessary constantly something to change and repair ".

Alexander Prytkov assures that there will be nothing to change and all internal communications of the lawn will work properly. "This is really a very complex engineering facility, the field is very shallow - there are no analogues in the world, but we are confident in our work," he says.

Interrogated by RBC, lawn-laying specialists say that it is impossible to "fit" the field to standard dimensions at the already constructed stadium, that is, to make the "trough" deeper, it means that the entire stadium will have to be rebuilt.