Final-day Premier League survival for Leeds United brings the prospect of increased investment in the club – both on and off the pitch. While summer signings will understandably dominate the agenda, many supporters will be interested to know whether there are still plans to redevelop Elland Road.
As one of the older stadiums in the Premier League, fans are aware that it could do with being modernised to realign with the other grounds in the top flight. There could also do with being more seats inside Elland Road with tickets being as readily available as gold dust for every home game this season, despite an underwhelming campaign.
Had Leeds been relegated, any hope of those developments would have been put firmly on the back burner but survival could ensure the relevant changes are made. Speaking before the start of the 2021/22 season to The Square Ball, Angus Kinnear admitted that the process of redevelopment is set to start after confirming top-flight status for a third consecutive season.
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“If we stay up this year, then construction wouldn’t start next year, but the process would,” he told The Square Ball in August 2021. “And that process is planning, full designs. And actually the financial commitment you need before you start construction is tens of millions of pounds.
“So the first gate that you need to go through is we [stay] up again, and therefore that’s tens of millions of pounds [of Premier League revenue] to take us to the point where you can put a shovel in the ground.”
Kinnear would add demand over the past few seasons means that the club fully believe that Leeds can justify a 60,000-seat stadium, as they look to bridge the revenue gap that clubs with new stadiums can bring in, citing the £100m a season that Spurs are able to generate, compared to Leeds' current level of £20m.
As has been seen at a number of other stadiums which have been redeveloped in recent years, it can become a logistical nightmare to play football in a stadium that is, in effect, a building site. For that reason, the redevelopment of Elland Road would be done in stages, something Kinnear also explained.
“The idea would be, for atmosphere purposes, to ensure that it’s a bowl rather than four separate stands,” added the Leeds CEO. “The phasing is open to debate. But you can either do the West and North at the same time, or you can do them separately. And you protect the attendance for the season that you’re doing it.
“The way that works is you build over the existing stand, so supporters can still sit in their seats, and then the next season they move upstairs and then you build the tier below it. So ideally you don’t lose significant capacity during the construction process. West and North could be done together [or] they can be done sequentially.
“And then it’s about probably joining it up to the East Stand, and it’s more of a redevelopment of the East Stand than knocking it down and starting again. And then the South Stand is the most challenging because you’ve got Elland Road behind it, so you don’t have the footprint behind to expand.
“So that would probably limit the expansion on that side … that stand would need to be taken down and started again. It just doesn’t have the depth of the other three.”
A lot of thought has clearly gone into the idea of redeveloping Elland Road and that will be encouraging for Leeds supporters. The idea of a stadium being ripped apart and started again can worry fans who might feel that the soul is being taken away with the debris. Although, it certainly seems like Kinnear and co are keen for that to not be the case.
You can find every update as it happens here on Leeds Live regarding any potential Elland Road redevelopment.
