Aberdeen chairman outlines plans for new stadium move

Fifacup[Wednesday January 05,2011]
Aberdeen Football Club’s chairman Stuart Milne has revealed that the club has no option but to move to a new stadium

Speaking at the club’s AGM the topic of moving to the proposed 21,000-seat stadium at Loriston Loch was top of the agenda.

"We don’t have the option of doing nothing,'' Milne said.

Aberdeen’s current ground and home for more than a century The Pittodrie Stadium is in need of major repair at a cost that would far outweigh any benefits; “This stadium has a limited life and every year we stay here it costs us a lot of money. That’s just going to continue to increase. At some point we have got to make the move.

"If we don't move we won't have a viable club, it's as simple as that."

The Chairman also revealed he was hopeful that the Dons would have moved into their new home in time for the 2013/14 season.

"We hope to get planning consent from the council in February. It will then be called in by the Scottish Office and we would hope for a decision before the break-up of parliament next year, around April.

"We then will go on to the contractor work and the aim would be to have all the funding in place by the first quarter of 2012 with a view to starting the project in the second part of 2012 to have the stadium ready to play in for season 2013-14.

"The estimated cost of the stadium is around £35million and the main funding areas are the sale of Pittodrie, a share issue and a long-term mortgage on the new stadium. We would see that raising £20 million.

“There are other areas, naming right, rental, development money from the other areas and some other things we are working on in the background. Between all of them we can I would hope bring in a further £15million.

"The soccer academy will be £4million and we are looking at alternative ways of raising that money and, by the middle of 2011, we hope to be able to say we can fund that. I can assure no one is under-estimating the scale of the challenge of putting this together and securing the funding for it, especially in the economic conditions prevailing and likely to be prevailing for the next few years.

"That is the challenge we have got. We have to square up to it and there is no option of sitting back and doing nothing."

Posted in: Newe