Romania’s National Bank (BNR), which currently owns the BNR Arenas tennis venue in central Bucharest, Eroilor area, has agreed to return it to Romania’s Youth and Sports Ministry for EUR 35 million.

BNR took over the venue in 1991 for only USD 233,000. The BNR Arenas are currently not operational.

Sports minister Marius Dunca, Romanian investor Ion Tiriac and tennis federation president George Cosac took part yesterday in a meeting organized by the Senate’s economic committee on the topic of the BNR Arenas.

The tennis complex previously belonged to the state, but became the central bank’s property in 1991. BNR is not an entity that can deal with sports, Tiriac said.

Daniel Zamfir, the president of the Senate’s economic committee, said that he was staggered that BNR asked for such a high price. “I think it’s a huge amount, and if we get to this solution, we’ll submit a draft proposal so that the base is transferred in the property of the Government or the City Hall,” he added, reports local News.ro.

The arena, which hosted the BRD Bucharest Open and the Nastase-Tiriac Trophy in recent years, needs refurbishing and can’t be used for international competitions anymore. Ion Tiriac said he is willing to pay two times or even ten times the price asked by BNR to have the arena returned to the state’s property, if the state agreed to build an Olympic swimming pool and an Olympic skating rink on the premises.

editor@romania-insider.com