The upper tier of Liverpool F.C.’s Anfield Road Stand (UK) will remain closed for the rest of the calendar year, the Premier League club announced recently.
‘BBC SPORT’ stated that the club are conducting an £80m upgrade to lift capacity by 7,000 to 61,000.
The Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England (UK). The club competes in the Premier League, the top-tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has played its home games at Anfield since its formation.
The Anfield is a football stadium in Anfield, Liverpool, England, which has a seating capacity of 54,074, and is currently under expansion to seat 61,276, which makes it the fifth largest football stadium in England (UK). It has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since their formation in 1892.
The Anfield Road Stand is one of four stands at the Anfield Stadium in Liverpool, England (UK). The other stands are the Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand, the Kop and the Main Stand. The Anfield Road Stand is two-tiered, while the other stands are single-tiered (Kop) or three-tiered (Main Stand).
‘BBC SPORT’ further stated that Liverpool changed contractors to Rayner Rowen Group last month after the Buckingham Group went into administration.
Preston (UK)-based the Rayner Rowen Construction is a dynamic, multidisciplinary construction company dedicated to delivering innovative and sustainable solutions which exceed its clients’ expectations. From its extensive and diverse experience in a variety of sectors, the firm is well-placed to deal with the challenging requirements of every construction project.
England (UK)-based the Buckingham Group Contracting Limited was a construction company that was founded in 1955. It was located in North Buckinghamshire and operated throughout England and Wales. The company went into administration in 2023, losing over 400 jobs and owing over £108 million.
The club Chief Executive Billy Hogan said it was “not possible at this point to put a new timeline in place” for completion of the expansion project.
It had initially been hoped the work would be finished by the start of this season.
Liverpool have taken the decision to keep that area of the stand closed until 2024 to allow fans clarity and the new contractors time to gather all the information they need to complete a revised project schedule.
Added Hogan, “On a project of this size, information on all the aspects of the work is critical to move forward. And what’s become clear in the last few days is there’s just more work to be done in order to get a full project completion plan for the stand, which means unfortunately as I said that the upper tier is not ready to partially or fully open until the end of the calendar year.”
Only the lower tier of the Anfield Road Stand has been occupied by supporters this season, with the ground’s capacity reduced to 50,000.
Explained Hogan, “Rayner Rowen really needs the time to complete the information-gathering before we commit to any new project timeline. There’s a lot of different, various factors that are going into this discussion and into this review, so many pieces of the jigsaw that we need to pull together. So, it’s just not possible at this point to put a new timeline in place.”
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