This past week, exciting news was delivered that St James’ Park would play a significant role in the upcoming EURO 2028 tournament taking place in the UK and Ireland.
Our hallowed turf is set to host five games at the tournament, with four coming in the group stage, as well as one of the eight last 16 ties: a significant boost from when St James’ Park hosted just three games back at EURO ‘96.
But with the tournament still over two and a half years away, it came as a shock that we were pencilled in as a host venue considering the widely-reported plans that we intend on leaving St James’ Park for a new stadium, or at the very least making significant renovations to the ground.
But the fact we’ve been handed five games of the tournament gives us the strongest indicator yet that a decision on when we will leave St James’ Park and find a new home is still some way away…
St James’ Park going nowhere soon
According to The i’s Mark Douglas, Newcastle have made ‘cast-iron assurances’ to UEFA that St James’ Park will be ready and available to use for EURO 2028, despite our long term plans to build a new stadium.
This comes as a clear hint towards the timeline of a potential move away from St James’ Park, which may be the most likely move internally, but won’t be going ahead anytime soon following our guarantee to UEFA.
Having beaten the likes of Old Trafford and Anfield to make the host venue ticket, Douglas reports that there was hesitation internally over whether or not we could actually commit to plans so far in advance.
Sorting out a new stadium has been high on the to-do list for the club’s hierarchy for some time now, and following on from the Carabao Cup win back in March, it really felt like a matter of time before the move to Leazes Park would be officially communicated.
But with no plans to announce the stadium situation until at least 2026, this looks to have given us the green light to join the list of host venues, and tell UEFA that there will be no “spades in the ground” that could disrupt plans now.
£98m plans in motion – but can we afford to wait?
It had been reported by one city councillor that the five games we’re set to host would welcome over 250,000 spectators to St James’ Park for the EUROs, and would generate £98m for the local economy.
However, the whole idea of us wanting to announce and proceed with any development plans was to boost our financial status and put us relatively on par with the Premier League and European elite.
With this knowledge that we cannot have any work done to St James’ Park during the summer of 2028, it’s unclear if this actually delays any new potential stadium plans.
For reference, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium officially began construction in February 2016, and saw its first games played there in March 2019.
Assuming we’d have a similar three year window, does a delayed announcement and EURO commitments now confirm that we won’t have a new stadium until the 2030s at the earliest? What could the commercial impact of losing out on 10-15k extra seats at games have on our revenue goals and PSR headroom?
Why should a totally new stadium away from St. James Park (in Leazes Park?) have any impact on Newcastle playing Euro games in 2028?
It all sounds to me like more excuses for kicking black and white cans down the road. I’ve seen arthritic snails move quicker then the PIF.
Toonarden(Quote)
Personally I will Question the rational of the article
Considering plans and Local Freeman’s approvals are yet to be agreed
If spades were in the ground tomorrow morning
The build will take us way past the Euros .
Therefore fruitless article
Again !!
trevor(Quote)
Agree, confused logic in this article.
I would suggest (and hope) this gives a clear indication that the plan is to move to a new stadium rather than renovate SJP. As others have said, work on a new stadium should not be materially impacted by SJP continuing to host games. And obviously a new stadium would not be ready by mid 2028 (Everton’s new stadium took ~4 years to build).
Howe the toon(Quote)