The cornerstone laying ceremony took place earlier today in the Skopje settlement of Novo Lisice where there will be a new FFM building, four fields in the training center, and a mini stadium which will seat 3,000 people.

This project was made possible by donations from UEFA, the city of Skopje, the municipality of Aerodrom, and the government of Macedonia.  The hope is that the improvement of infrastructure will improve the results of not only the senior national team but also of all the youth national teams of Macedonia as well.

The new FFM building will be built in 12-15 months while the four fields in the training center are near completion.  A mini stadium is also scheduled at the location that will seat around 3,000 people.  Once the whole project is done, all of the national teams of Macedonia will train at the training center.  The project, including the mini stadium, will cost four million euros according to FFM’s website.

The FFM president, Hari Hadzi-Risteski, said the following, “Macedonia has many football talents but lacks the infrastructure and fields for the young kids to properly learn the secrets of football.  I hope that the construction of this training center will be an incentive for the other clubs and cities in Macedonia to start building similar centres that will result in an improvement of the youth academies and lead to more quality in the football of Macedonia.”

Currently, the senior national team always trains at the National Arena Phillip II of Macedon because of the lack of options.  So, this new training center will give more flexibility to manager John Toshack and provide better conditions for the players of all the national teams.  At today’s cornerstone ceremony, Toshack and all of the players were present to give their support for the project.