The Premier League is known for having some of the best stadiums in world football.
FourFourTwo has produced a ranking of the 100 best stadiums in Britain, with newly crowned Premier League champions Liverpool‘s Anfield and Manchester United‘s Old Trafford both appearing in the top five, and plenty other Premier League stadiums scattered throughout the list.
However, not every stadium in the league up to the same standard, and some certainly need renovation to keep up with the times.
Bournemouth want to make their stadium bigger, but it might get smaller in the meantime
Bournemouth‘s Vitality Stadium is the second smallest stadium in Premier League history.
The 11,286 it currently holds is a couple hundred seats bigger than Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road, which has an official capacity of 11,050 and was a Premier League stadium for 19 games in the 2023/24 season.
However, Bournemouth’s American businessman owner Bill Foley confirmed plans for the club to expand the capacity of the stadium by almost double.
The club has agreed to re-purchase the stadium after they sold it in 2005 to London property company Structadene.
At the opening of the clubs new training ground Foley said: “I’m pleased to inform you that we have come to terms on the acquisition of Vitality Stadium and we should be closing that shortly.
“And we also are preparing our pre-application to the council with regard to expanding and renovating the stadium, with the goal being within two and a half years, we’ll have 20,000 seats, with the further goal, if things work out well, to go into 23,000 seats.”
Foley explained the club looked at building a new stadium, buts said it would take too long as the clubs sets its sights on European football.
Foley said: “We looked at building a new stadium and working that out, we finally decided it would take us about five or six years.
“So in this case, we will renovate this stadium and we’ll do it in such a way that no fans will be disrupted, it won’t be shut down, everyone will have their seat and then we’ll move forward and be able to start expanding our base.”
Whilst Foley suggests the fans won’t be impacted, work being done on the stadium will almost certainly see the capacity reduced for health and safety reasons.
It means the already small stadium by Premier League standards could get even smaller, even if just for a very small period of time.
Adoni Iraola will be hoping it doesn’t affect his side too much, with European football a genuine possibility on the south coast next season, with Bournemouth just six points off Aston Villa in sixth place and four games remaining.
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