The Political Economy of Football V2

Nottingham Forest’s ambitious plans to redevelop their City Ground stadium took a major step forward Wednesday night, as they were granted planning approval. Seven years and seven months after the scheme was first announced, the Premier League club were given the green light by Rushcliffe Borough Council to push forward with their plans to increase the capacity of their historic home to 45,000 in an initial phase, followed by a second phase that would take it up to as much as 52,500. The club intend to redevelop three of the four stands at the stadium, but most notably the Peter Taylor Stand, which will triple in size from holding 5,000 seats to 15,000, within a structure that would stand 58 metres tall. That is only slightly shorter than the Council House in the city’s Market Square, where Forest celebrated promotion in 2022. Forest also want to fill in the corners on either side of the Trent End, joining it up with the neighbouring stands to create up to 5,000 more seats as par...

On Thursday morning, Manchester United unveiled the proposed location of their new, 100,000-capacity stadium.  Unsurprisingly, minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s prize project will be based on land the club acquired last month to the north-west of the existing Old Trafford stadium, around 350 metres away from what has been their home since 1910. Collette Roche, United’s chief executive of new stadium development, spoke to journalists following the event at Old Trafford to give an update on where the plans stand, and how they have changed since United first announced their ambitions for a new home in March last year.  Back in March 2025, Ratcliffe expressed confidence that the project could be completed in as little as five years, provided it gained the support of local and national government. Omar Berrada, United’s chief executive, was unequivocal on timescales at that stage. When asked if the 2030-31 season was the target for the grand opening, he simply said: “Yes.”Yet ...

Manchester United have secured the majority of the land required to build a new 100,000-seater stadium to replace Old Trafford.   The club announced on Monday it has acquired a 25-acre site north west of the current stadium from Indurent, an industrial warehousing company. The land is located around 350 metres away from Old Trafford’s existing site — between Wharfside Way, Europa Way and John Gilbert Way.    The acquisition means that United no longer require land owned by Freightliner, a rail logistics company, located directly to the west of Old Trafford.Freightliner were demanding around $400million (£301.8m) for the land, substantially higher than United’s projected price of around £50m. The acquisition marks a change from initial designs unveiled by United and architects Foster + Partners last year, which located the new stadium adjacent to the existing site. United said they do not anticipate issues acquiring the remainder of the land required by the new st...

 Afer a troubled history, Valencia are at last making progress on their much needed stadium:  https://footballgroundguide.com/news/nou-mestalla-redevelopment-restart-marks-biggest-project-in-valencia-history-ahead-of-2027-opening.html

Chelsea still believe there is a chance of them building a new stadium at Earls Court, even though an alternative plan for the land has been approved by both councils involved. The Earls Court Development Company (ECDC) is now close to receiving full planning permission for a mixed-use development on the same land that had been mooted as a potential site for a new stadium for Chelsea. However, club sources, on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly, have indicated to the   New York Times that they are still considering all options for the future of their stadium — including a new ground at Earls Court. The future of Chelsea’s stadium is not a new debate. Under previous owner Roman Abramovich, the club submitted an offer for the Battersea Power Station site in 2012, in which they proposed to build a 60,000-capacity ground, but a Malaysian consortium purchased the site instead. In 2017, Chelsea secured planning permission for a 60,000-seat stad...

The weekend Financial Times has a fascinating review of a new exhibition on football stadiums at Tate Liverpool + RIBA North, Home Ground, sited perfectly in a football-mad city where the architect designed both Liverpool’s Anfield and Everton’s Goodison Park, and where the latter club’s huge new 53,000-seat ground sits by the waterside, on Bramley-Moore Dock.   It is on until January 25th. The article is written by an architect but one who clearly has a great knowledge of stadiums and a love of the game.   Indeed, he reveals himself as a Fulham supporter. 'In May this year I went to see Fulham, my team, in west London, walking through the red-brick facade designed by Leitch in 1905 (with its now almost laughably slender turnstile doors — early attempts at crowd control). Instead of standing on the terraces like I used to in the 1980s, I was taken to a new stand, an almost nautical construction now known as Fulham Pier, which sits on the riverside surmounted by a dra...

Chelsea understandably feel constrained by having a smaller stadium than London rivals Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham.   Match day revenue is smaller and there is little opportunity for the kinds of alternative uses pursued by Spurs. The possibility of Chelsea building a new stadium at Earl’s Court has hit a setback after an alternative plan for the land was approved by one of the councils involved.   Personally I never thought it was viable. At a meeting on Wednesday night, Hammersmith and Fulham council approved proposals for a development on the site of the old Earls Court Exhibition Centre which will include a mix of new homes, retail and hospitality, and workplaces. The plans are led by the Earls Court Development Company (ECDC). The land had also been mooted as a potential site for a new stadium for Chelsea, who are looking at future options to develop or move away from Stamford Bridge. The ECDC’s plans do not include a football stadium. Hammersmith...

The steep bowl design lof Birmingham City’s new stadium features 12 chimney-form towers, designed to echo the brickworks that once sat on the site and point towards how the hard-working people of Birmingham changed the world during the Industrial Revolution. The chimneys — undoubtedly the biggest talking point — will provide structural support for the roof while accommodating lifts and staircases and helping with ventilation. One tower will even include a lift to what is claimed will be Birmingham’s highest bar, offering city-wide views. Once completed, they will be viewed from 40 miles away. Early reaction to the £1.2billion ($1.57bn) project from locals has been largely positive, but considerably more mixed across the country. Long-serving supporters of football clubs are sensitive to changes around history and tradition, with a stadium move the most delicate issue, yet the initial signs are that many Birmingham fans are on board. The design includes seating as close to pitch...

Spurs’ state-of-the-art stadium is the envy of the Premier League and has been widely considered one of the best venues in Europe since it opened in April 2019 — after a three-year build — at a cost of £1.2billion ($1.6bn). The Emirates, now nearly 20 years old, remains a spectacular ground in its own right, and one of the best in England, but it has aged quickly over the past six years due to the competition it faces from the blue-and-white part of north London. Whether it is hosting the biggest music artists, annual NFL matches, boxing events or housing the F1 Drive — an electric go-karting track — under the South Stand, Spurs’ stadium is light years ahead of Arsenal’s home. As part of their agreement with Islington Council, Arsenal can host six non-football events attended by more than 10,000 people per calendar year. Only three of these are allowed to be music concerts. Spurs, on the other hand, can host up to 30 non-football events. That is an increase on the 16 Haringey C...

The owner of Fulham FC is betting a £350mn investment in its stadium that includes adding a private members’ club will provide the Premier League club with the financial firepower to compete with its richer rivals. “I think it’s going to go a long way towards making Fulham competitive and compliant with [financial] fair play rules,” Shahid Khan told the Financial Times on a tour of the west London development, which features a grand piano, marble bar and a riverside walkway.   The multibillionaire said the additions to Craven Cottage, the club’s home since 1896, were made viable by its Thameside location, which was a “key asset” — adding Fulham has the “most educated, richest fan base in English football”. Khan is seeking to build new revenue streams to help reduce his financial support and fund player signings after Premier League clubs spent a record £3bn-plus in the summer transfer window.   The league’s financial regulations mean clubs cannot lose more than £105mn over...

Nottingham Forest are using the architects who oversaw Liverpool’s recent expansion of Anfield to help with new-look plans to turn the City Ground into a stadium with a capacity of up to 45,000. Three months after obtaining planning permission to start their home ground’s long-awaited redevelopment, Forest have now decided to shelve those designs in favour of a more ambitious overhaul of the stadium that has been their home, beside the River Trent, since 1898. The Premier League club had previously intended to demolish the Peter Taylor Stand — the oldest, and smallest, of the City Ground’s four — and replace it with an entirely new structure, increasing capacity from just over 30,000 to around 35,000. Work was due to begin next year. Among sweeping changes, however, the club have been exploring alternative proposals to remove the roof of the Peter Taylor, then build over the existing structure to turn it into one of the biggest stands in English football, tripling its number ...

While at the time of its inauguration, the Emirates was considered at the vanguard of the stadium experience, it has fallen behind in the intervening years as technology has transformed our daily lives. General modernisation would be welcomed. For example, phone connectivity is awful and the improvement that has been discussed for a while is yet to materialise. The PA system is imperfect in parts of the stadium. More recent rebuilds utilise innovative systems to get fans through food and drink concessions quicker. All these factors go hand in hand with any capacity increase. The building itself is only one part of the infrastructure which needs attention, though. Working with the local council, emergency services and Transport for London, plans for an extra 10,000 (possibly more) people to safely arrive and leave the area are a considerable obstacle. As things stand, two of the stations which are closest to the Emirates and in normal use outside of matchdays are forced out of actio...

Arsenal are planning a major expansion of the Emirates that could force them to move their home matches temporarily to Wembley Stadium. Detailed work has gone into a potential overhaul of the north London stadium that would increase Arsenal’s current 60,700-capacity to beyond 70,000. It would restore the club’s standing as the biggest ground in London, overtaking West Ham United and rivals Tottenham Hotspur. It is understood the club have options to change the gradient of the stands and can also adapt the seating plan to fit in more fans. The outer bowl, however, would remain similar in appearance as the majority of developments being assessed would come inside the ground. Arsenal, though, will be well aware that Real Madrid doubled their matchday income following their recent upgrade to the Bernabéu, which generated €241m (£210m) in the most recent accounting year. Industry experts believe that a comparably steep year-on-year increase is feasible. Arsenal are restricted by...

When Portsmouth host Preston North End in the Championship on Saturday, the club will also celebrate the centenary of their double-decker South Stand, the oldest surviving example of stadium architect Archibald Leitch’s work that is still in use in England. Between 1899 and 1939, Leitch cornered the stadium market in the UK and Ireland, and he was commissioned to design all or parts of more than 40 grounds, with his signature touches being latticework steel supports on the upper tier’s frontage and distinctive pediments in the middle of the stand’s pitched roof. Sadly, nearly all of his work has been demolished or radically altered over the years, as clubs have moved to more modern facilities. Rangers, Leitch’s boyhood club, still have modified Leitch designs at their Ibrox home but the only other double-decker still standing in England is at Everton’s Goodison Park, which the Premier League side waved goodbye to last season. Portsmouth’s North Stand is also one of Leitch’...

Everton fans have been through the mill in recent years, but now they have a splendid new stadium at Bramley Dock.  The patience of the owners of the Bramley Dock Inn has paid off and the area is reviving. American architect Dan Meis, pitchside to witness his vision come to life, had been mindful of recreating the atmosphere from Goodison Park. The 52,769-capacity stadium is vastly more modern than its predecessor, but it has very much been built to keep the sound in. Meis, based out of Los Angeles and New York, designed the steep South Stand to have a 34.99° gradient. The legal limit is 35°. The stadium’s metallic roof is meant to reverberate sound. New beginnings are not always painless. It has taken a while for Everton’s Premier League rivals, such as Arsenal, Manchester City and West Ham United, to adapt to different surroundings. West Ham, it could be argued, never have. And while there will be inevitable teething problems — on and off the pitch — for Moyes, his side and s...

Birmingham City Council’s planning committee will convene on August 28, with a view to voting on plans to expand Villa Park.  Planning permission is sought for the extension of the stadium’s North Stand, increasing its size by 5,926 seats to take the ground’s overall capacity to 48,809. This marks a key date in Aston Villa’s ambition to raise the maximum number of spectators above 50,000 in time for the 2028 European Championship, being co-hosted by England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, in which theirs is set to be one of the nine grounds staging games. A raised capacity would also assist with Villa’s efforts to grow matchday revenues, helping them comply with profitability and sustainability rules (PSR). Presently, a major issue impacting the ability to drive revenues is stadium capacity. West Ham United, for example, boast a ground that holds 20,000 more spectators than Villa Park’s 42,640. Within draft papers seen by  The Athletic  are the de...

One of the most controversial proposals for stadium-led regeneration is in Manchester. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Monaco-based billionaire co-owner of Manchester United, is making the case for building a “Wembley of the North” (originally an idea that Port Vale had many years ago) — referring to the £750mn national stadium in London that was built with private and public funding and boosted the local area through investment in roads, rail and routes for pedestrians. Ratcliffe argues that a new 100,000-seat stadium can “be the catalyst for social and economic renewal of the Old Trafford area”. The project’s cheerleaders have requested more than £200mn in June’s spending review to unlock development around the stadium. The funds would ostensibly pay to remove an adjacent freight terminal to open up space for the new stadium.    Influential  Mayor Andy Burnham has argued that moving the terminal would help address one of the north’s most acute rail bottlenecks, thereby repre...

Stadium rebuilds and upgrades are all the rage in football right now. Big clubs are in an arms race to create venues that maximise revenue, from high rolling fans quaffing champagne in hospitality, curious tourists wanting to snap selfies in the team museum, or from music lovers willing to splash our to big name artists perform on the pitch. Small clubs want a piece too, in an effort to avoid being completely left behind. To do all this, some are appealing to central governments for funding — ostensibly to improve transport links and set up the area for long-term economic growth.    The Financial Times lays out the broad strokes of that debate in England in their  latest Big Read , which takes you on a tour around Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Transport is just one of the major hurdles these stadium projects face. Planning can be slow and cumbersome, especially as most existing venues sit in the middle of densely populated residential areas. J...

Under the American franchise system, politicians are eager to attract sports stadiums to their cities.  They offer tax breaks, transport links and even help with construction costs.   American investors in UK football are familiar with the idea of persuading politicians that their stadium plans can bring public benefits.   Politicians are often susceptible to 'grand projects' and sport can be glamorous and associated with concepts such as inclusion, well-being and fitness. There is a large literature on the economic benefits or otherwise of stadium construction.   It is well summarised by Victor Matheson in a 2019 article: 'The case in favor of subsidizing large sports facilities is much harder to make than the one against. The peer-reviewed literature typically finds little or no evidence that the construction of new professional sports facilities results in significant increases in any type of measurable economic activity including personal income, ...

Everton have announced law firm Hill Dickinson as the naming rights partner for their new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.  The new 52,888 capacity venue — which will replace Goodison Park as the men’s team’s home from next season — will be known as the Hill Dickinson Stadium. Founded in 1810, Hill Dickinson is an international commercial law firm with 11 offices across the UK, Europe and Asia, the club say. Everton claim the agreement is “one of the largest stadium naming rights deals in Europe” but have not disclosed what the finances or the length of the agreement are. Craig Scott, Hill Dickinson CEO, said: “As Hill Dickinson continues to grow internationally, we remain proud of our Liverpool roots — and we are honoured to be part of one of the most exciting waterfront developments in Europe.”