The Infrastructure Projects

[Salvatore Matrecano]

The extra 10,000 seats from a new ground will earn us approximately £7m a year. We will get more off field an commercial use granted but redeveloping the CG would get more income too.

Lets call it a round £10m a year better moving.
Thats just 8% of our TV income.
Or the price of a modest signing like Dominguez.

So how exactly does this transform us from relegation candidates to European contenders?

Honestly Sal it's doing my nut in. This need has come from nowhere and it's because it's dirty. People aren't just saying we need a new stadium because it's what they want, it's been fed to them.

Since when have people wanted a new stadium because the city ground is substandard and limits our capabilities on the pitch?

The club could easily smarten up the city ground concourses, bars and toilets, whilst building a new main stand.

People need to ask themselves at what point did you start wanting a new stadium and why?

Its quite bizarre because the exact same arguments have been there for 20 years.

But now suddenly on the back of an interview with our chairman (who blatantly lied about the rent) and one with our owner flexing his biceps, everyone wants to move to a “sports village” when nobody even knows what that means.

[Trailer Park Tom]

It feels a bit like the Simpsons when Springfield gets all the new money and matey sells them the monorail

[stefanduma]

It feels a bit like the Simpsons when Springfield gets all the new money and matey sells them the monorail

Can we all do the "Monorail dance" with its "catchy tune"

[wassy04]

The extra 10,000 seats from a new ground will earn us approximately £7m a year. We will get more off field an commercial use granted but redeveloping the CG would get more income too.

Lets call it a round £10m a year better moving.
Thats just 8% of our TV income.
Or the price of a modest signing like Dominguez.

So how exactly does this transform us from relegation candidates to European contenders?

According to a quick Google Spurs went from 40m to 106m when they moved from WHL to the new ground, in the first year. This is just including the matchday income benefits as opposed to all the other commercial benefits such as extra boxes, concerts etc. 

I think the reason opinion has moved is primarily that we've been promised the work for a long time and nothing has happened. I think most people can see that EM spending the amount required to get the CG up to scratch doesn't represent fantastic value for money for him and potentially just isn't possible based on what's happened so far. 

Also, watching us get points penalties and getting a taste of the high life in the Prem and wanting to improve plays a factor. 

I'm still on the fence but I'm starting to lean towards a new ground. Perhaps Toton doesn't sound like the best option though.

[Uwantlee]

The club have announce record season ticket renewals plus a waiting list of 12000. This is the hear of the club not the ground. The city ground will always be special to us but we will always be limited whilst here. Even if we own the land we can’t do much with it… or not enough to satisfy the owners aspirations. We need the infrastructure to be competitive and this will include more than just the ground. We already have enough fans to fill a 40000+ ground and the current plans have us at 380000.
West ham got it wrong moving to the Olympic stadium it simply wasn’t built for football. Tottenhams ground could be immense with atmosphere but the spurs fans have never been much cop.
However hard it would be leaving the WFCG we have to do what is right if for the club to be competitive. If we are happy with relegation battles, swapping between the prem and the champ then stay where we are.
However, I’d like to see plans before a decision is made… get something drawn up and let us fans have a say as.
EM will make a decision on what’s best for us as a club and not because some of us remember the European cups and success under cloughie. If EM thinks a new ground, new training facilities in one site is best then I trust him to make that decision. However we are the heart of the club and we should have a say on what it’s going to look like.

Im interested to know how a new stadium is going to make us avoid relegation battles? We should have gotten relegated this year and it had nothing to do with our spending capabilities.

A valid point of course… we have spent a good sum of money to be distinctly average in the prem and had the teams below us been better we would have been relegated… FFP caught up with us too so if we hadn’t spent the money we had you could argue we would have been relegated. We need greater sources of income, bigger crowds, more use of stadium facilities outside of just match day. This will enable us to spend and not worry so much about ffp. We can only do this if we move. The CG will never be a suitable site to do all we need. We can increase our capacity a little but we will still be limited.
If we could find a way to do it all where we are then great that has to be the priority. However, I would assume EM has done his homework on this…. If he really thinks moving is best for the club then I’ll back him. If he thinks he can do what he wants to achieve where we are now then even better.
We need to be better next year and we can move up the table no doubt but to be competitive, to be like villa, we need to be more as a club and not just the 11 on the pitch.

Why be like Villa? 

Let's be like Man City and go for the title.

Villa have the same capacity as we would have with a new main stand.

That's the point... Villa park is not going to be much bigger if we expand the CG but the surrounding ar as of villa park and the stadium use offer a lot more in terms of income... Increasing the capacity is not going to be enough to get us where EM wants us. If he is genuine about competing then we will need to be more than the city ground .. .

I may be wrong however .. I'm sure EM will have done his homework and if the CG can be built in to something more then it will.

[ToryTom]

The ownership have had plans to develop the Peter Taylor stand for quite a few years. Not much has really happened in that time. Even if completed the stadium would be relatively small in comparison to the premier league we want to compete with. Some have said an extra 10,000 or even 20,000 capacity only provides a drop in the ocean of extra income when compared to tv money and prize money and so it is not worth the sadness departing the City Ground would leave us with. Others have pointed out a multi use 50,000 stadium would provide a lot more opportunities to raise income than just 19 games a season. Also monopolising the match day hospitality would also vastly increase income streams. For me the dilemma is do we want to continue to proritise the clubs community roots and value or become more of a commercial brand like a sporting franchise. The truth is football in the premier league is going the way of the latter. Where Man Utd and Liverpool led the way the likes of Man City Arsenal Tottenham chelsea have followed. Clubs strongly associated with their communities in relatively financially deprived fanbases like West Ham and Newcastle have gone that way. To break into the cartel at the top end of the premier league it has become about maximising income to get the best players. Those clubs have become brands and are no longer synonymous with their local communities. If we want to break into that I fear we will need to the same or else accept we are never going to establish ourselves in this league for long. Toton probably gives us greater opportunity to do that. Reading between the lines it looks like we may have been offered incentives to move and convince the owner to change his plans. I wonder if this is our once in a generation opportunity moment similar to Man City and Wham getting given new multi purpose enlarged stadiums.

[Paplane]

Does Marinakis actually have the money to build a half a billion pound stadium and a training ground at probably £100m while servicing a premier league club that costs him £40m a year, a greek club and now a Portuguese club? I know he's a wealthy man but that's an awful lot of money.

[Reds73]

Does Marinakis actually have the money to build a half a billion pound stadium and a training ground at probably £100m while servicing a premier league club that costs him £40m a year, a greek club and now a Portuguese club? I know he's a wealthy man but that's an awful lot of money.

The stadium build would be mortgaged over a lot of years

[Username]

Does Marinakis actually have the money to build a half a billion pound stadium and a training ground at probably £100m while servicing a premier league club that costs him £40m a year, a greek club and now a Portuguese club? I know he's a wealthy man but that's an awful lot of money.

The stadium build would be mortgaged over a lot of years

Interesting. 

Surely the costs of servicing a loan of that magnitude would outweigh the financial benefit in the short and medium term?

[Reds73]

Does Marinakis actually have the money to build a half a billion pound stadium and a training ground at probably £100m while servicing a premier league club that costs him £40m a year, a greek club and now a Portuguese club? I know he's a wealthy man but that's an awful lot of money.

The stadium build would be mortgaged over a lot of years

Interesting. 

Surely the costs of servicing a loan of that magnitude would outweigh the financial benefit in the short and medium term?

Toton for example would be funded partly by a Grant you would think.

15 extra seats at £30 a game equates to an additional 10m a year in revenue
Then a brand new ground would absolutely dwarf our current commercial revenue not just on match days, but 365 days of the year.
We make about 2/3m a year from match day corporate hospitality.
That would double or treble with a purpose built stadium.
Then you have stadium naming rights that would be lucrative.

A new stadium would easily generate 20/25m more a year in revenue 

Infrastructure costs aren’t counted in PSR regs, so this is / would be game changing

[Salvatore Matrecano]

In which case, genuine question, why have Everton in part been penalised for PSR breaches due to losses associated with their new stadium?


Also think you are exaggerating the £20-25m extra revenue and ignoring that developing the CG would generate a substantial extra amount. I do though accept long term a new stadium gives more income. I question how much extra that is and if that value is worth selling our soul for?

[Fumanchew]

In which case, genuine question, why have Everton in part been penalised for PSR breaches due to losses associated with their new stadium?


Also think you are exaggerating the £20-25m extra revenue and ignoring that developing the CG would generate a substantial extra amount. I do though accept long term a new stadium gives more income. I question how much extra that is and if that value is worth selling our soul for?

I thought they hadn’t, and that all the Everton fans were making out that’s what was making their accounts look dire?