Leeds United Elland Road expansion: Plan change, Marathe admission, Lowy role, Radrizzani ‘renovate’ - YEP 25/11/22

All of the latest news on Leeds United’s desire to expand Elland Road.

By Molly Burke

Leeds United secured promotion to the Premier League back in 2020, leaving it nearly impossible to get your hands on tickets at Elland Road. The club arguably doesn't have a capacity that matches the size of the fanbase and stature of the Whites, with a capacity of 37,792.

Elland Road is one of the oldest grounds in the country and it's no surprise talk of an expansion has been brought up time and time again of late. And top-tier survival this season would once again be a huge boost for a potential upgrade. We take a look at Leeds United’s latest expansion plans and how their Premier League status will have an impact.

Marathe on Elland Road

Speaking to the BBC’s ‘Sports Desk’ podcast, Leeds vice chairman and 49ers chief Paraag Marathe has tentatively discussed his plans for the future, in particular his vision for Elland Road.

“I’ll be honest with you the main thing is to protect the magic and electricity that is in Elland Road,” he said. “The answer then is [it] probably means that it’s more of a stadium expansion than a new stadium because I don’t want to take away from that.

“Players from the other 19 [Premier League] clubs, if they are going to list the three worst places that they want to play on the road for an away match, Elland Road is probably one, two or three for them. I don’t want to take that away.”

Radrizzani’s ‘renovate’ comment

Andrea Radrizzani spoke at the Web Summit in Lisbon last year and discussed his investment in the club, the stadium and the partnership with the 49ers.

“Leeds United, like Eleven and many other businesses in my life, are always a challenge,” he said. “All my life I’ve been seen as an underdog, people haven’t given me credit every time I’ve started something. People tend to say ‘It’ll crash, it’s football so it’ll lose money’.

“I invested about £100m in buying and rebuilding Leeds United in the Championship. Now the club is in the Premier League, we have a lot of international players. In the first team seven or eight but not only in the senior team. The value is now probably four times higher.

“People think sometimes I’m crazy to do this investment but it is rational because with the right people and management it can be rational. Give time to flourish the project and we can achieve things.

“Now we are partnering with the 49ers. This year it will be very difficult to stay in the Premier League but if we stay up this year we can do much more next year. Next, the top six over time and hopefully start to renovate the stadium and grow this club.”

The Daily Mail reported in September that managing director Angus Kinnear is 'leading the drive' on the expansion plans and that Peter Lowy would play 'an influential role when the project gets underway'.

22,000 fans are said to be on a waiting list for season tickets and the expansion would expect to increase corporate and retail facilities.

Change of plan

It was confirmed only in June 2021 that plans to build a new training facility had been withdrawn in favour of increasing the capacity of Elland Road to 55,000. Investment from the San Francisco 49ers had allowed them to review their stadium development plans, however it was made clear that they would need to remain in the top flight to uphold these plans.

Speaking to The Square Ball, Angus Kinnear revealed: “If we stay up this year, then construction wouldn’t start next year, but the process would” - suggesting plans would likely have been put on the backburner had the Yorkshire club returned to the Championship.”

While the expansion will clearly take quite a long time, Leeds’ future in the Premier League would clearly be key to any plans.

Stages of development

Kinnear also spoke on how the expansion would take place, with the length of time redevelopments usually take making playing in the stadium particularly difficult.

The Whites’ CEO claimed the development would be done in stages, saying: “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.”

Kinnear also admitted that they would look to change the layout into a ‘bowl’ rather than four separate stands to improve the atmosphere.