LAS VEGAS (AP) — Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said he was optimistic three key documents needed to begin construction on a new stadium for the Athletics would be approved Dec. 5.
“We're rounding third and heading for home,” Hill said after Thursday's Las Vegas Stadium Authority board meeting.
Hill and the LVCVA were so hopeful the approvals would come at that December meeting that three others were canceled. The board will next meet Oct. 17, and a meeting has been set aside for Dec. 12 as a “safety valve.”
The three documents that need to be approved for the planned $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat domed stadium on the Las Vegas Strip are the lease, non-relocation and development agreements. The lease agreement was presented Thursday without a vote.
That agreement provides an initial 30-year lease that ultimately can be extended up to 99 years. The agreement for the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders is 30 years without language beyond that time frame.
Allegiant Stadium, which is home to the Raiders, opened in 2020. The A's hope to open their ballpark in time for the 2028 season.
“I think mostly it wasn’t contemplated in 2016 when we passed the law,” Hill said. “You don't necessarily need that information in the law. It gives us optionality. We talked about it during the process that we’re going to get to 15 or 20 years and the parties involved will probably reopen the lease and renegotiate it.”
This is the A’s final season in Oakland. They agreed to play the following three seasons, with an option for a fourth, in a Triple-A stadium in West Sacramento, California. The A’s will share that facility with the River Cats, the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A club.
The A's have said they expected to spend $350 million in public money rather than the $380 million allocated by the Nevada Legislature.
The club has said it plans to finance $300 million of the stadium cost and the other $850 million would come from private equity. Hill said it's possible the A's could present their financing plan at the October meeting.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Oakland Athletics' JJ Bleday (33) and Zack Gelof (20) celebrate with teammates after a baseball game against the New York Mets, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in New York. The Athletics won 7-6. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
FILE - The Oakland Athletics and their design teams released renderings, March 5, 2024 of the club's planned stadium in Las Vegas. (Negativ via AP, File)
PARIS (AP) — There will be a heavy police presence but few visiting fans when France hosts Israel in Nations League soccer on Thursday amid an increasingly tense political climate.
French police chief Laurent Nuñez said 4,000 police officers and security staff will be deployed around the Stade de France, with another 1,500 police on public transport.
Paris authorities are on high alert and pursuing extreme measures one week after violence against Israeli fans around a Europa League soccer game in Amsterdam in attacks widely condemned across Europe as antisemitic.
Nuñez said the event was at “high risk” of tensions. “What we learned from Amsterdam is that we need to be present in the public space including far away from the stadium," and in public transports before and after the match, he said Thursday on French news broadcaster France Info.
Three months after hosting the Olympic closing ceremony, the atmosphere has gone from festive to fearful and the national stadium was expected to be three-quarters empty for the match. French President Emmanuel Macron and French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will be present. Former presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy are also to attend.
Only 20,000 of 80,000 tickets have been sold with around 150 Israel supporters reportedly attending, escorted by police.
“We’ve tried to prepare for this match as normally as possible. But obviously none of us within the team can be insensitive to such a heavy context,” France coach Didier Deschamps said Wednesday. “It impacts the amount of supporters present tomorrow and everything that goes with it.”
The away match against Israel on Oct. 10 — which France won 4-1 — was played in Budapest, Hungary.
“These are situations the players are not accustomed to,” Deschamps said. “But we have to adapt.”
The low number of visiting fans comes after Israel’s National Security Council warned citizens abroad to avoid sports and cultural events, specifically the match in Paris.
Retailleau told French news channel TF1 on Tuesday that no specific threats were identified but “zero risk does not exist.”
Therefore, he said, exceptional measures are in place "before the match, during the match and after the match."
The elite tactical unit of the French National Police, known as RAID, will be in the stadium and some police will be in plain clothes mingling with fans. There will also be heavy surveillance within Paris, including at Jewish places of worship and schools.
“It is out of the question that we take the risk of seeing a repeat of the dramatic events, of the manhunt, that we saw in Amsterdam,” Retailleau said, adding that postponing or moving the game elsewhere was ruled out.
“France does not retreat," he said. “France does not submit, and the France-Israel match will take place where it's supposed to.”
Amsterdam witnessed scenes of chaos when Israeli fans were attacked by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, according to Dutch authorities. Before the game, a large group of supporters of the Israeli team could be seen on video chanting anti-Arab slogans as they headed to the stadium, escorted by police.
Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday night against a controversial gala organized by far-right figures in support of Israel.
The game in Saint-Denis, the suburb north of Paris, is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 p.m. local time (1945 GMT) on Thursday.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration is organized on a Saint-Denis plaza at 6 p.m. local time to protest against the match.
Nine years ago, Stade de France was one of several locations during the Nov. 13 terror attacks in which 130 people died. France was playing Germany that night when two explosions happened outside the stadium.
Deschamps, Germany coach Joachim Löw and all of the players stayed together in the locker rooms for hours until it was safe to leave.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Police officers stand guard ahead the UEFA Nations League soccer match between France and Denmark at the Stade de France in Saint Denis near Paris, France, Friday, June 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)
