Seven months ago, the newly built Karteros Beach Sports Center by Heraklio was used for the 3rd Coastal Mediterranean Games. The Center was built exclusively for this event and at a cost of six million euros.
Seven months later, the center has been abandoned and as been taken over by wild growing vegetation, snails, bugs and whatever else is endemic in the fruitful Cretan soil.
The sports center of Heraklion, the Karteros Beach Sports Center, which was built at a cost of at least 6 million euros during the days of Lefteris Avgenakis at the Deputy Ministry of Sports in order to host the 3rd Coastal Mediterranean Games, has turned into an unkempt… vegetable garden.
The event was held in September 2023, the facilities were used and forgotten the moment the athlete were gone and dignitaries returned home. Basically six million euros was just “thrown away” on a one-time sports event and for the purpose of the promotion of local politician, Lefteris Avegenakis, a Deputy Sports Minister, as locals complained, documentonews.gr reported.
The shocking decay in DT time was brought to light by the president of the football clubs of Herakleio, Nikos Tzortzoglou, who accidentally stumbled upon some wild greens when he took his son to the beach last Sunday, April 7.
“Shame, disgrace, sadness and disappointment. a tragicomedy in a vegetables garden and with the prospect of developing into a snails farm, the emblematic Karteros Beach Sports Center costing at least 5 million according to Lefteris Avgenakis. Photos and videos are an irrefutable witness,” Tsortzoglou posted on Facebook.
He further commented that the situation is raising the questions:
-5 million euros, maybe 7 maybe even 10 million, Greek taxpayers’ money for a single-use sports facility without a plan for utilization, without a plan for sports activities.
– Just 7 months ago, the 3rd Coastal Mediterranean Games took place in this current garden, the Karteros Beach Sports Center.
– Just 10 months ago, on June 13, 2023, the official inauguration of the Karteros’ “jewel” took place…
– Just 15 months ago at the Karteros Beach Sports Center, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was briefed and given a sight-seeing tour by Lefteris Avgenakis…
An idea, a vision of fellow citizen Lefteris Avgenakis, then Deputy Minister of Sports, who put it into practice with fast track procedures and who characterized them as “model sports facilities”, for his personal needs of self-promotion.
With wonder, anger and indignation I noticed the “model” the “top” the “unique” the “best in Europe” the “jewel of Crete” as it was praised by Avgenakis for his personal needs of self-promotion I saw wild greens, radishes, lettuce growing , probably also other edible plants of the Cretan countryside,” Tsortzoglou noted.
In the end he asked:
– Can we recklessly scatter the millions we collect from the Greek taxpayers for a single-use sports facility just for the personal self-promotional needs of a deputy sports minister?
-Can we waste so many millions for a single-use sports facility and at the same time leave one of the top stadiums in Greece, Pankritio in the same city in Heraklion, in disrepair?
-Should someone give answers for this disgrace for this shame for this waste of public money?
So far, there is no respond by minister Lefteris Avgenakis, now a minister for Agriculture.
It’s obvious this was his plan all along as he knew he would become minister of agriculture.
right lol
Six million Euro is just chump change. The 2004 Olympic venues cost around nine billion Euro. What state are they all in today? I thought that the legacy to the wider sports community was supposed to be a key parameter in deciding who gets the games?
“legacy to the wider sports community” = bribes and kickbacks to the committee who decide.