Club Brugge will have to build their new stadium without public funding. This means a very slight change in financing, but makes a huge difference for… other Belgian football clubs.

It’s now confirmed that the Flemish government won’t support Club Brugge’s plan of building a brand new stadium and training centre in the north of Bruges. The project would have received €2.5 million in public funding if it remained in the form proposed back in 2013.

This was when Club Brugge and Cercle Brugge were planning building two stadiums next to one-another. Now that Cercle opted out of the scenario in favour of rebuilding the current Jan Breydel Stadion, funding evaluation resulted with denial.

With overall budget of the planned stadium at €100 million this represents a very minor change for Club Brugge. The team was already prepared in 2015 to run the project privately. If delivered, the 40,000-capacity stadium will become Belgium’s second largest.

However, the latest change means other football clubs will receive portions of the €2.5 million in order to revamp their home grounds. Lommel United can grab up to €1.19m, Sporting Lokeren €750,000, Royal Antwerp €250,000 and KV Oostende €119,500.