following the gibraltar football association's admittance as a full member of uefa in may 2013, uefa vetoed gibraltar using victoria stadium as their home ground as it did not meet uefa standards and as the government of gibraltar owned it. as a result of this lack of ownership, the gibraltar football association did not have the power to improve it. this was owing to the fact that victoria stadium did not meet uefa standards for international matches, which meant that the gibraltar national football team was obliged to play their "home" matches in uefa and fifa qualifying tournaments at estádio algarve in faro, portugal however they were permitted to play friendly matches there. the government of gibraltar and the chief minister of gibraltar, fabian picardo stated that they were not going to spend gibraltarian taxpayer's money on renovating the stadium without the site having uefa approval stating "it would have been the worst possible bargain for the people of gibraltar to have pursued the gsd’s approach of putting taxpayer’s money into victoria against the wishes of uefa at the time".