Newcastle United fans are awaiting and update on the next stage of the plans for the redevelopment of St James' Park or indeed whether the club will be building a new stadium.
It seems that many fans are warming to the idea of building a brand new stadium, especially if they can build the new home on or near the existing site.
The location of St James' Park has always been its most unique selling point, but it has also been its biggest problem when it comes to talk of expansion.
Fans were told they'd be informed of the next steps in 'early 2025' but it feels like that's going to be the end of the first quarter rather than January.
There have been recent reports suggesting that things may not be going so smoothly for the PIF who are funding the project. One of the issues facing the club now is that the land which houses St James' Park is owned by the Freemen of Newcastle and as such can't be sold by the club.
Football finance expert Stefan Borson has now told Football Insider what this could mean for the club, and more importantly, the fans.
“If you build a stadium for let’s say £2billion, you have got a very difficult challenge on getting a return on that investment unless you can push prices very high.
“If you are saying one of your other routes is you can’t sell or can’t get full value for the land for St James’ Park, which is in a central location and has relatively high value, if you can’t get let’s say £250million in for the current site, at some point the economics don’t work on building a new stadium in Newcastle.
“I don’t know what that breaking point is.
“Newcastle have got super smart people around the table on this and I am not going to teach them anything about how to do that property deal.
“But they will be thinking about does this make a financial return and can it make financial sense.
“If you keep taking bits out and you are not getting a return in from this plot of land because you have got a problem selling it or a planning issue, it’s going to have an impact.”
So it sounds like a season ticket price hike is in fans' futures should the new stadium go ahead, which was probably expected anyway.
How that will go down with the current crop of season ticket holders is anyone's guess, but it's hard to imagine it will be met with positivity.
It's likely that even if the club decides just to expand St James' Park, the costs are going to be passed on to supporters. We should find out soon enough what the plan is and how fans will be affected.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
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1 |
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23 | 35 | 56 |
2 |
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24 | 27 | 50 |
3 |
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24 | 13 | 47 |
4 |
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24 | 16 | 43 |
5 |
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24 | 13 | 41 |
6 |
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24 | 13 | 41 |
7 |
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24 | 13 | 40 |
8 |
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24 | -3 | 37 |
9 |
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24 | 4 | 36 |
10 |
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24 | -3 | 34 |
11 |
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24 | 0 | 31 |
12 |
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24 | -2 | 30 |
13 |
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24 | -6 | 29 |
14 |
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24 | 11 | 27 |
15 |
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24 | -17 | 27 |
16 |
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23 | -5 | 26 |
17 |
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24 | -18 | 19 |
18 |
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24 | -28 | 17 |
19 |
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24 | -27 | 16 |
20 |
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24 | -36 | 9 |