LONDON, Jan 12 — Chelsea have been granted planning permission to build a new 60,000-seater stadium, which will bring the west London club in line with some of their Premier League rivals.
AFP Sport looks at how the stadiums of the league’s current top six clubs compare:
Arsenal
Stadium: Emirates Stadium, London
Opened: 2006
Capacity (for Premier League games): 60,260
Match-day revenue (2014-15, Deloitte figures): £132 million (RM719.3 million)
After 93 years at Highbury, Arsenal left in 2006 to move to a new, purpose-built stadium a stone’s throw from their former home. The stadium’s £390 million cost impacted on the club’s spending power in the transfer market and prompted manager Arsene Wenger to place increasing faith in young players. But while Arsenal remain without a Premier League title since 2004, financially the move was a huge success, with the club boasting the highest match-day revenues of any European club in the 2014-15 season.
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Chelsea
Stadium: Stamford Bridge, London
Opened: 1877
Capacity: 41,631
Match-day revenue: £93 million
Projected capacity (new stadium): 60,000
With a capacity of under 42,000, Chelsea’s ground is only the seventh biggest in the English top flight behind Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City, Sunderland, Liverpool and West Ham United. They plan to build a stylish new arena on the same site, designed by the architects behind Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium, at a cost of around £500 million. But the club still need approval from the local authorities and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan before they can begin tearing down Stamford Bridge.
Liverpool
Stadium: Anfield, Liverpool
Opened: 1884
Capacity: 54,167
Match-day revenue: £75 million
Liverpool were obliged to play their first three league games away from home this season as the finishing touches were applied to their new £114 million Main Stand, which now towers over the 133-year-old stadium. American owners Fenway Sports Group have also revealed plans to expand the Anfield Road Stand by adding 4,800 seats, which would take the overall capacity to close to 60,000. But the additional development is on hold, with chief executive Ian Ayre having voiced fears it would not prove cost-effective.
Manchester City
Stadium: Etihad Stadium, Manchester
Opened: 2003
Capacity: 55,097
Match-day revenue: £57 million
Built to stage the athletics at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the City of Manchester Stadium was converted into a football ground in a project jointly funded by Manchester City and the local authorities. A new 7,000-seat third tier in the South Stand opened last year, taking the ground’s capacity to over 55,000, and there are plans to add a mirror tier in the North Stand, which would raise the capacity to over 60,000. The stadium is connected by a footbridge to City’s sprawling training complex, a 200-acre development built on reclaimed land.
Manchester United
Stadium: Old Trafford, Manchester
Opened: 1910
Capacity: 75,643
Match-day revenue: £114 million
With a capacity of close to 76,000, United boast the biggest club stadium in Britain and the fifth biggest in Europe. Successive expansion projects in the 1990s and 2000s saw the ground’s capacity swell from around 45,000 to close to 76,000. But works to accommodate more disabled spectators, scheduled to be carried out later this year, mean the ground stands to lose around 3,000 seats.
Tottenham Hotspur
Stadium: White Hart Lane, London
Opened: 1899
Capacity: 32,000
Match-day revenue: £54 million
Projected capacity (new stadium): 61,000
White Hart Lane’s northeast corner vanished during the close season—with the loss of some 4,000 seats—in order to make space for the giant new stadium that is rising from the earth around it. Tottenham are expected to relocate to Wembley for next season before moving into their new home, which is being built on the site of the current ground, for the 2018-19 campaign. Thumbing their noses at north London rivals Arsenal, Spurs have made sure their new ground will be a few hundred seats bigger than the Emirates. — AFP
