Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 9y

Cordoba face 140km training trip after pitches burned through 'sabotage'

"Sabotage" at Cordoba's training ground means the Spanish club's first-team squad may have to train over 140 kilometres away in Seville for the remainder of the season.

Persons unknown have on at least two occasions through recent weeks entered Cordoba's training ground and used chemical products to severely burn the grass on its pitches. The surface is now so ruined that training there would now be dangerous for players, club president Carlos Gonzalez has said.

Miroslav Djukic's side have in recent weeks been training at their Estadio Nuevo Archangel ground, but daily use there would make that surface unusable for La Liga games, so the club is now considering traveling daily to Seville (140 kilometres away) to use the facilities at either Sevilla or the citys 'La Cartuja' Olympic stadium.

On Jan. 30 the club made an official complaint to the local police, saying a particular herbicide had been used to damage the grass, although not providing any motive for the apparent sabotage.

The situation was now so bad that club chief Gonzalez told a news conference the training pitches had been put beyond use for the considerable future.

"It is lamentable what has happened," said Gonzalez. "It is very serious. I believe this is the first time in the history of football that the city's first team's facilities have been sabotaged.

"The police are investigating to determine the authors of this barbarism. There is no solution because we have been told that no grass will ever grow back in the area which was burned. You cannot train there for risk of injury. We have a serious problem as there is no facility in Cordoba where a Primera Division team can train."

Travelling to Seville each day for the remainder of the season to train is far from ideal, Gonzalez later told El Larguero, but there were no other potential options.

"Cordoba are playing to be able to remain in the elite," he said. "It is a problem we do not know how to overcome. It is very serious, it is worst thing that could happen to a football team. Seville is close, but it is an hour and a bit each way. That means almost four hours travelling, plus the training session."

Cordoba are currently in their first season in the Primera Division for 42 years. A new training ground with facilities in keeping with a top flight club has been planned, but that project is currently stalled due to environmental concerns about building on a 'green zone' site.

During Tuesday's news conference, Gonzalez also called for the local town hall to allow work on the new facility to begin immediately.

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