Countdown to the 20th anniversary of the farewell to Highbury, Arsenal plans to expand the Emirates Stadium

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Li Jingyi

When it was put into operation in August 2006, the Emirates Stadium, which cost 390 million pounds, was immediately upgraded to a modern iconic stadium for football, which also allowed Arsenal to establish itself as a giant and survive. Next summer, the Gunners will celebrate the 20th anniversary of bidding farewell to Highbury and moving into the Emirates Stadium. The Gunners' home stadium is known for its high ticket prices, but as Arteta leads the team back to the forefront of the Premier League, the team's box office popularity remains high, and it is even harder to get a ticket at the Emirates Stadium. In order to not only cater to the needs of fans for watching games, but also increase the stadium's revenue, and keep the stadium up to date with the development of the times, Arsenal is brewing a plan to renovate the Emirates and consider large-scale expansion to accommodate more live spectators.

The Daily Telegraph exclusively revealed that Arsenal has also conducted a detailed study on potential renovations and plans to increase the existing capacity of 60,700 to more than 70,000, thereby surpassing the London Bowl of cross-city rivals West Ham United (62,500) and the new home of rival Tottenham (62,850), and regaining the status of the largest stadium in London.

In the potential renovation plan, Arsenal has no intention of changing the appearance of the home court, but mainly focuses on internal upgrades such as adjusting the slope of the stands and transforming the seating layout. It is predicted that the expansion will increase the Gunners' annual revenue by tens of millions of pounds, and can also partially satisfy the current season ticket waiting list of more than 100,000 people. The Gunners plan to advance the renovation quickly, but given the complexity and huge cost of the project, everything still needs to be considered in the long term.

In addition to the hundreds of millions of pounds in renovation costs (some say 500 million), the Gunners also have a thorny problem to solve - the home court problem during the upgrade of the Emirates Stadium. When the Emirates Stadium was built, Arsenal was still based at Highbury and didn't need to worry about it. Now that Highbury has long disappeared in the long history, this transformation is very likely to force them to follow Tottenham's example and rent Wembley as a temporary home. Tottenham have been on loan at Wembley for nearly 2 years, paying a rent of 15 million pounds.

Limited by surrounding residential areas, subways, railways and stations, the Emirates Stadium cannot further expand its area and can only find ways to increase its capacity. For example, by raising the height of the stadium, architectural experts estimate that even if only one row of seats is added, there can be 1,000 more seats. The distance between seats at the Emirates Stadium is wider than that of ordinary stadiums. Rearrangement can also increase capacity, and the sloped oval roof can also be moderately modified. High-level officials studied Real Madrid's renovation cases that cost more than 1 billion euros from 2019 to 2024, including retractable domes, 360-degree LED screens, and multi-functional underground field storage facilities, and planned to create a multi-functional, digital stadium. More importantly, after Real Madrid upgraded to the Bernabeu, their matchday revenue doubled, reaching 241 million euros last season. According to Deloitte data, the Gunners' average annual ticket revenue from 2021 to 2024 is 121 million euros, which is not only difficult to compare with Real Madrid, but even 7 million less than Tottenham. Even Old Trafford, which has outdated facilities, has an average box office of 22 million higher than Arsenal in three years. In terms of attendance, the Gunners have lagged behind West Ham United, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United over the past five years.

Arsenal have not yet applied for planning permission for a home upgrade, and given the various legal and planning obstacles, as well as the balance between stadium construction and other investments focused on the lineup, planning permission for such a large-scale project may take up to five years (the planning period for the Emirates Stadium is about 10 years). Fortunately, the Gunners' owners, the Kroenke family, have extensive experience in infrastructure construction. They once led the Los Angeles Rams' US$5.5 billion SoFi Stadium project with a capacity of 100,000 people. The stadium will also host eight games of the 2026 World Cup and the opening ceremony of the 2028 Olympic Games.