大阪府吹田市籌款建四萬人體育館

Recently the Mainichi News on-line reported the following:

毎日新聞　2012年07月06日　20時13分（最終更新　07月06日　22時13分）

　大阪府吹田市の万博記念公園内にＪ１・ガ大阪の新本拠地となるサッカー専用スタジアムを建てる計画で、建設資金の一部に充てる個人寄付が伸び悩んでいる。サッカー界や関西の財界などでつくる「スタジアム建設募金団体」が今年４月〜来年３月に寄付を受け付けるが、最初の３カ月で集まったのは、目標（２０億円）のわずか２．５％分の５０００万円。この苦戦の背景には、現在リーグ１６位と苦しむガ大阪の成績不振がありそうだ。

　現在の本拠地・万博記念競技場（吹田市）は築約４０年と老朽化しており、新スタジアムは１４年度内に完成する予定。日本代表などの国際試合も開催できる収容人員４万人規模の施設を目指している。

　今のところ、スポンサー企業などからの寄付８０億円と、独立行政法人からの助成金３０億円の計１１０億円の建設費を確保できる見通しが立った。この金額でも３万人程度の規模の建設は可能だが、４万人規模を目指し、１４０億円を集める計画だ。募金団体側は残る３０億円のうち個人から２０億円、法人から１０億円を集め、４万人規模の施設を実現させたいとしている。

(試譯文)

Regarding the building of a stadium inside the Expo Memorial Park in Suita city of Osaka that would be used especially for soccer games and as the new headquarters of J1- Ga in Osaka, the individual contribution as part of the fund for the construction work had made little progress. Although the "Stadium Construction Fund-Raising Organization" which was related to the soccer community and the business world of Kansai etc. had started receiving contribution starting from April this year up to March next year, only 50 million yen or 2.5% of the target (2 billion yen) had been collected in the first three months. Ga Osaka’s the painfully poor ranking of the 16th place in the present league was likely to serve as a backdrop for this hard-fighting.

The present headquarters, the Expo'70 Commemoration Stadium (Suita city) as a roughly 40-year-old structure was due to be superannuated; the new stadium was scheduled to be completed before the end of 2014. The aim was to have a facility that could accommodate 40,000 people that would represent Japan when holding international matches.

For the moment, the prospect of up to 11 billion yen of construction fund was secured, of which a subsidy of 3 billion yen was from the independent administrative agency and a contribution of 8 billion yen was from a sponsor company etc. While with this amount of money it was possible to construct a facility with a size that could accommodate about 30,000 people, but aiming at a 40,000 people, 14 billion yen was scheduled to be collected. On the side of the fund-raising organization, for the remaining 3 billion yen, 1 billion would be collected from the individuals and 2 billion yen from the corporations; and supposedly an institution with a 40,000-people capacity could be realized.

I hope Osaka could eventually get the donations they need to build this new stadium.