Newcastle fans will have to wait until 2025 to find out club's plans for St James' Park expansion

Newcastle United continue their efforts to ensure they make the correct call on a potential stadium expansion.

One of the first things on the PIF's to-do list when they took over at Newcastle United was to begin the process of looking into the options regarding an update of St James' Park - whether that would mean an expansion or an entirely new stadium.

There has been a lot of opposition to the club moving to an entirely new stadium due to the iconic position of St James' Park. The 'Cathedral on the Hill' dominates the Newcastle skyline and its position in the centre of the city makes it one of the more unique stadiums in the country.

However, expanding the current stadium is fraught with pitfalls including a metro station under one end of the ground and listed buildings with a wealth of protections behind another.

Brad Miller gave a presentation to the FAB on St James' Park

The club has listened to fans' feedback regarding a move and have tasked several firms with creating feasibility studies to come up with ways around these issues, however a stadium move is not off the table.

The Fan Advisory Board recently met with the club where Chief Operating Officer, Brad Miller gave a detailed presentation on the current situation as shared by the club via the official site.

"This is an exciting but extremely complex project, and I'd like to thank supporters for their patience as we conduct this key phase of the feasibility process.

"We aren't quite at a decision-making stage yet, but we are targeting the early part of 2025 to complete the next essential tasks.

"We know what a transformed St. James' Park would give us and we now have a significant amount of data and feedback on our stadium footprint and surrounding area, so we are several steps forward.

"But it is also clear that this option has several risks associated with it, so we need to fully analyse those risks against the opportunities to reach truly informed and intelligent outcomes.

The club want to make sure they get this right first time

Miller went on to mention the significance of the potential increased capacity and the effect it would eventually have on PSR headroom which would ultimately allow the club to spend more on transfers and thus help to close that gap to the top teams.

He also mentioned the importance of getting the decision right, namely ensuring that a few years down the line they aren't looking back and questioning if they made the right call.

To me, this sounds like a full-on new stadium is still on the table as an entirely new, bespoke ground would be the ultimate way to maximise potential and would send a huge statement to the rest of the Premier League.

The St James' Park exterior Tis starting to look dated

A St James' Park expansion could definitely increase revenue, and as iconic as the stadium is, there's no getting away from the fact that it's looking dated compared to the likes of The Emirates and Tottenham Hotspur's ground and even Everton's new Bramley Moore Dock.

Of course the external look is not the be all and end all, and St James' Park has undergone some magnificent transformations on the interior of late to bring it more up to date.

We'll just have to wait until 2025 to see what's potentially in store.