Article Taxonomy: Stadiums

Football stadiums

Is code sharing bad for football?

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One of the challenges in making a profit, or at least not making too big a loss, in football is the stadium.   You have a substantial capital asset which across the year is used about once a fortnight.  There are options, of course.   You can put shops and small businesses under the cantilevered stands: Utrecht is a good example.   You can rent out your suites for meetings and conferences, but that is a competitive business and you need a high quality, well located facilities.   Pop concerts or other events tend to mess up the pitch and are proba

Wycombe fans question stadium plan

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The Supporters’ Trust at Wycombe Wanderers is not backing the club’s plan to build a new stadium at Booker.  They are not ruling it out, but they would like more consultation on the proposal.  Reasonably enough, they have raised questions about the need for a stadium with a 17,500 capacity.  Even given the ground share with Wasps, this is a lot for a club near London that has never been above League 1.   Stadiums that are only thinly filled of

Partick Thistle hit cash flow problems

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Glasgow’s Partick Thistle are encountering cash flow problems.    The Jags live in the shadow of ‘The Old Firm’, although they appeal to a somewhat different clientele.   It is now twelve years since the club’s fans stopped it going to the wall with a ‘Save the Jags campaign’.   It is anticipated that in this new crisis the club will make an appeal to fans for funds.

Bristol City get boost to stadium plan

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Bristol City has received a boost to its proposed £92m stadium development at Ashton Vale.  The football club chairman, Steve Lansdown, sold £58m of shares in Hargreaves Lansdown, the company he co-founded with the intention of partially funding the stadium project.   Some of the money will go into a new ‘green’ private equity venture and Mr Lansdown declined to confirm that most of the cash would go towards funding the football club’s plans.

City’s escape strategy

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After recording losses of £121m in the last financial year, surpassed only by Chelsea with a £141m loss in the first year of Roman Abramovich’s ownership, Manchester City need an escape strategy to avoid falling foul of Uefa’s financial fair play regulations.  These come into effect next season and require clubs to make a loss of no more than £39m over three years if they are to qualify to play in the Champions League.

When a new stadium lands you in trouble

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Football clubs large and small often believe that a new stadium is the answer to all their problems.  A properly thought through project like the Emirates can contribute to a club’s standing and revenue stream.  But all too often stadium projects are driven by considerations of prestige with the financial calculations based on hope rather than reality.

Debt worries in Ireland

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A big story in the financial pages in the past week has been the state of the Irish economy and whether it can continue to fund its debts given the state of some of the country’s banks in the aftermath of the collapse of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom.  These concerns extend to the Football Association of Ireland  (FAI) which has debts of €50m, although it made a profit of €5m last year and insists it is on track to pay them all off by 2020.

Chairboys decide on new venue

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Wycombe Wanderers have decided that their preferred site for a new stadium to be shared with London Wasps is Wycombe Air Park at Booker.   The plan is to have a stadium that would accommodate at least 17,500 spectators.


The proposed stadium would also include facilities for cricket, a racquet centre and an athletics facility.  There are also plans for a hotel, residential development and centres for education and training.   It is hoped that the stadium would reduce the reliance of the Chairboy on funds provided by owner Steve Hayes.