Vantaa mega-arena seeks answers on funding as ministry says no money available

The planned Arena 3.3 in Vantaa’s Kivistö district has spent years in development, yet its backers say they still cannot secure state funding similar to the Garden Helsinki project.

According to email exchanges obtained by Yle, the project’s manager asked Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture in early summer how Arena 3.3 could qualify for public grants.

In written replies, ministry officials said the government has no budget for such large-scale sports venues and that the Garden Helsinki subsidy had come as a surprise.

“The funds available in our sports-facility construction budget have never included amounts like the Garden grant, or anything close,” one ministry specialist wrote.

The exchange highlights concerns raised during the Garden controversy about whether capital-region arena projects are treated equally. Arena 3.3’s manager also questioned why the ministry’s initial EU notification for Garden Helsinki relied solely on the developer’s own assessment rather than publicly known facts about competing projects.

Ministry staff acknowledged that Garden Helsinki’s inclusion in the 2025 public-finance plan had not been coordinated with them, calling it an unexpected shift in responsibility.