There is a lot of change happening at Newcastle United, both on and off the pitch.
Eddie Howe and his team are getting ready to celebrate their sensational Carabao Cup win at the Town Moor event on Saturday.
Newcastle United will be joined by Alan Shearer and local celebrities like Ant and Dec on stage after embarking on an open-top bus parade through the city.
In the meantime, Newcastle officials are yet to decide on new stadium plans after options were recently presented to the PIF during their visit to Tyneside.
The belief is that PIF want Newcastle in a new stadium, but chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan is yet to make a final decision on what plan the club will go ahead with. There is also the chance that Newcastle will expand St James’ Park to a capacity of around 60,000, but that comes with a slew of different logistical problems that would come into play if the club went with that choice.
Now, a new report has revealed what CEO Darren Eales has ‘told staff’ about the new stadium and its capacity.
Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images
Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images
Eales has been the face of a lot of Newcastle’s commercial deals since arriving on Tyneside in 2022. The 52-year-old is set to step down from his role with the Magpies after contracting a chronic form of blood cancer, but there has been no news of a replacement as of yet.
According to the Guardian, Eales is understood to have told staff that 65,000 is the proposed capacity for the new stadium, a staggering 13,000 increase on the existing ground. Recent reports suggested Newcastle’s new ground would have 70,000 seats, but Eales has stated that every seat needs to be filled for every game.
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Newcastle’s ambition is to build the second-largest club ground in the country after Manchester United’s Old Trafford. Plans for the stadium show a multisport and entertainment venue capable of holding concerts and other large events.
The report also claimed that a ‘promotional video’ of the new ground has been created, suggesting that a decision over plans is coming very soon, and that the decision will be to relocate from St James’ Park.
The video was shown to Al-Rumayyan, senior staff at Newcastle and a fan advisory board on a confidential basis. It begins with an aerial shot of the parkland surrounding Leazes Park before showing off the new stadium.
The stadium in the video is believed to be further away from St James’ Park than initially thought, which could mean that Newcastle won’t have to relocate while the new ground is being built.
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Eales has confirmed the decision will be revealed to Newcastle United fans very soon. The choice comes following years of speculation over whether the Magpies would stay local, near their city centre ground or relocate further into the suburbs of Newcastle.
The Guardian report has also confirmed that Newcastle are working with London-based architecture firm KSS, who have recently worked on projects like the Ahmed bin Ali Stadium in Qatar, the renovation of No. 1 Court at Wimbledon and Leicester City’s new state-of-the-art training ground.
It has also been confirmed that the club have appointed a planning consultant, but are yet to make an application to Newcastle City Council.
The stadium plans also go in tandem with Newcastle’s new training ground, which is believed to be built around the Newcastle Racecourse.