Stadium Expansion?

Prior to ashley's takeover in 2007, there were proposals under freddy sheppard to expand the gallowgate, Bringing the total capacity to 60,000, meaning it would have been the joint second largest club stadium in the country. Ashley then temporarily postponed The proposal and the issue hasn't really been raised since. I can no longer attend home matches regularly and so buy tickets individually for each match and, although we rarely completely sell out the stadium, it is very difficult to find several seats available next to each other. Furthermore, with clubs such as Liverpool looking to build larger stadiums, isn't it essential that we increase our stadium size to ensure it remains one of the most iconic in the world and allow us to attract top players purely by the incredible st.james'. An expansion would also demonstrate our ambition and keep the likes of Joey Barton satisfied. But investment in the stadium would surely reduce available money for transfers, which we evidently need. Thoughts?

 

Think the planning permission for this expired. The club would have to apply for it again. Lets face it, we need to get things right on the pitch first, everything else follows

 

Odd, this just happened on my fm11 save...

Anyway can't see it happening under Ashely with him being the tight dick he is.

 

Costs a lot to expand a stadium you know. Our last expansion cost £42million. Considering that we're now attempting to get by within our means, I can't see where the cash would come from, unless we used the transfer budget, but using that to buy players would be a significant improvement to the clubs status compared to just adding more seats to the stadium.

 

The big issue is cost. I'd be willing to sacrifice a little bit of would-be transfer money to get this done but this summer we can't afford anything more than £10m.

 

Investment in youth > Investment on the pitch > Investment on other things

Although, saying that, the fat man has invested a fair bit on the under-ground heating at the training ground.

 

Doubt it will happen under Ashley. Plus attendances would have to be full regularly for this to be considered a good idea, under Ashley they haven't been.

Not too bothered about not having our stadium expanded anytime soon. It's most certainly not a priority.

 

For this to be a credible idea, we would need to stabilise out and start performing consistently well (with consistently high table finishes) to start attracting bigger crowds. People would also have to forgive Ashley, as I can imagine that some have stopped going in protest of him still being in charge.

 

Stadium expansion is exempt from the fair play rules I believe, if that's your issue. I don't see it happening until/unless we're back in Europe with some regularity though.

 

We would also need to be at least secure of Premier League status so probably not for the next 4/5 years, but after that when the club is financially sound I don't see why not, It would definitely be good for the club in the long run.

 

I'm not talking about financial fair play. I'm talking about what we've decided to do as a club. Ashley clearly wants us to go along within our means, and that's why he's avoiding investment of anymore of his own money whilst sorting out the finances so we're profitable. If he's now unwilling to spend anymore of his own cash on transfers, I can't see him forking out tens of millions for stadium expansions.

Perhaps once day he will, when there's a definite need for them and the initial investment will pay off in ticket sales increases.

 

The cost of extending the capacity at SJP is huge becasue the only viable area is the Gallowgate end, which means removing exisiting roof structures, removal of partial top layer of terracing and then building back over the existing road. It would genarate about another 8k seats, all in the lower price range.

It will never happen.

 

Went on a SJP tour just recently, the tour guide mentioned about the expansion and said the amount of money needed to build, would require us playing champions league football year in year out

 

52,387 is still one of the largest in the country, even in Europe.

We do not need to expand it. I'd rather we expanded the squad using the cash.

If anything was to happen to the stadium, it would be to rip the stupid lettering of the overhang. You know, the:

SPORTSDIRECT.COM@

bit.

 

It's all part of ashley's new 5 year plan, you'll be hearing about it soon

 

Anyone remember the hotel, conference centre and a super casino?

 

No, I don't, but these may have been scrapped as they don't contribute to the Fair Play rules.

 

Yeah, wasn't it scrapped when we weren't chosen for one of the super casino licenses/venues?

Would have been good to expand the ground and hopefully Llambias could have been shipped out to run the casino, making way for a chairman who actually had ****ing clue!!

 

It started in 2006 when NUFC and MGM created a partnership to bid for a super casino that had to have a convention/conference centre

Mike bought the club in May 2007.

Llambias became managing director in August 2008 with his only experience as a director of a casino...

The government advisory panel awarded the super casino licence to Manchester in Jan 2007.

Feb 2008 the government retracted the award.

Towards the end of 2008 the possibility of the super casino licence bidding starting again are high as it's deemed as a job creation scheme.

Coincidence?

 

I'd love for this to happen but like so many others I can't see this happening under Ashley