After fighting a significant battle over planning permission, Gerard Pique, the Spanish defender has been given the green light to proceed with construction on the plot of the old Andalusia cinema, in the center of Malaga, according to the Spanish Newspaper, MARCA.

What caused the delay was the fact that investigations brought to light an important archaeological revelation: There had been a medieval Muslim burial ground on the land on question.

The plot where the future hotel will be built occupies about 3,000 square meters. If there are no setbacks, the construction of the hotel is set to begin in January 2023.

In an attempt to reduce the scale of the construction disaster on the land of Muslim cemeteries, the archaeologist Alberto Cumpian said that "the tombs are empty, possibly never used, and are not valuable enough to be preserved," in an interview with SER Malaga.

"The Muslims were buried without grave possessions, something that was interpreted as a sign of vanity… We have uncovered only five percent of what was the great Muslim necropolis of Malaga, one of the largest in the peninsula," he added.