Rent or build a new stadium?
The City Ground is located on property that is leased from the city council; the lease has 33 years left on it. This is the venue that Nottingham Forest has played in since 1898. Because the municipality is demanding that the rent be increased from the existing £250,000 to almost £1 million, talks on the extension have come to a complete halt.
According to a representative cited by the BBC, the council is still committed to holding more talks to determine the optimal course of action. Options for the stadium in the future include extending the existing lease, arranging a new one, or selling the ownership rights permanently. A deal on this issue was almost reached in 2019, but it eventually fell through when the council claimed it had not met its duty to maximize value for taxpayers because it had already hired experts to provide advice.
A new chair will hasten modernization.
There are doubts about whether the proposed redevelopment of the City Ground would move forward in light of the recent stalling of talks. There have been whispers going about for a while, according to Elliot Stanley of the Nottingham Forest Supporters Trust Foundation, that the proposed redevelopment could be in jeopardy because of the talks being suspended. Tom Cartledge, the club chairman, has partially echoed this opinion when he says that they may need to look elsewhere if they don’t see meaningful development. In order to hasten the renovation, current chairman Tom Cartledge replaced Nicholas Randall at the conclusion of the previous year.
At first, the project was supposed to start in the summer of 2020 and take 15 months to complete. The Nottingham Forest stadium’s capacity will be raised to 35,000 seats as part of the renovation proposal. Nevertheless, there are still problems with the fact that before construction on the Peter Taylor Stand can start, the Britannia boat hangar next to the stadium needs to be entirely reconstructed. Over £94 million is projected to be spent on the reconstruction. In the case of the Bridgford Stand, there are also plans to improve and expand the stadium’s other three sides.
Supporters call for a new venue
The club owner, Evangelos Marinakis, is eager to invest financial resources in this stadium; thus, we must find a means to make it happen. Elliot Stanley said, as cited by the Nottingham Post, “The local government is currently having financial difficulties, so moving Forest out of the city won’t help.”
Fans of Nottingham took to social media very immediately to express their opinions. It seems to me that nothing significant will occur. My own matchday experiences at the City Ground have been nothing short of unpleasant; as one fan put it, “Every stand needs modernization; the restrooms and catering points are barely usable.”
The club itself is in the Premier League relegation zone, so there are concerns within the community over its future. Supporters worry that if the team is relegated, Evangelos Marinakis will sell the team and plans to construct a new stadium will be thwarted.
The City Ground was last renovated in 1993, despite having undergone multiple modifications since its opening in 1898.
