The final few months of 2025 saw some big changes at Newcastle, as we replaced Darren Eales with David Hopkinson as CEO, and saw Ross Wilson arrive in Paul Mitchell’s place as our new Sporting Director.
With a strong team now in place, we’re hoping to see some major off-field moves take place, whether that’s announcing new sponsorship deals and/or deciding on our plans regarding the stadium.
The question on everyone’s lips is simple: stay at St. James’ Park and expand our current home, or build a brand new state of the art stadium close by.
Updates have been pushed back and back, but we did hear from Hopkinson last night as the Canadian spoke from a We Are United fan event at the STACK.
Discussing when a final decision will be made and the key considerations under review, Hopkinson refused to close the door on renovating St James’ Park, despite previous reports suggesting we’re likely to build a new stadium around Leazes Park:
“I don’t know. We’re not ready to yet (to make a final decision).
“What’s clear is to win consistently, to be at the top consistently, we’ve got to grow revenues. Ad that means we need world-class facilities to generate those revenues.
“St James’ Park is incredible, but I think there’s still opportunities (to expand). But whether that’s a renovated or reimagined St James’, we haven’t made a decision yet. We are working on it literally every day.
Our new CEO then touched on the wait for a final decision, explaining why such a “complex project” is taking time to finalise:
“I know there’s a lot of pressure. I don’t know when that will be. That’s not today and I don’t think it will be next week either. We’re working on it furiously. The complexity around financing, it’s an incredibly complex project.
“This will be the most ambitious project this club has ever taken on. That work needs to be below the waterline. Grand announcements of this design and this date, we’re not ready for that year.
“Getting ahead of ourselves with the announcement of a plan will not be helpful. I recognise that will not be a popular answer, but I don’t know the timing of a press announcement at this point.”
“I know what world class looks like but how it looks in this community we are learning. We are not quite crystal clear what that looks like at this moment.”
It is taking a long time to reach a final decision, but with new experts in place and so much to consider at a key moment in the club’s history, I’d rather they took time to make the right move than rush into the wrong one.
I get that the stadium is complex etc but what is happening about the state of the art training complex that isn’t so complex, not a peep.
Absolutely glorious(Quote)
More kicking the can down the road on both training and stadium it seems. Other clubs don’t seem to have these issues.
kimtoon(Quote)
So in fact nothing new,,,
The only thing that is holding up a new stadium will be the council and the 28k signatures from people who don’t even live near leazers park, in fact I’ll go so far as to say they’ve not even walked through it or seen the absolute mess it is and 💯 they wouldn’t be within a mile of it at night without a swat team…
MorpethMag(Quote)
the worrying thing is they haven’t even mentioned the training ground at all
Absolutely glorious(Quote)
the worrying thing is they haven’t even mentioned the training ground at all
5 signatures will be from local residents and the other 27995 will be from the seagull worriers from wearyside
Absolutely glorious(Quote)
You’ve got it,👏👏👏👏👏
MorpethMag(Quote)
Genuinely .. were they asked about training ground . Ive seen several articles about last night and all that’s covered is the ground. What was the structure?? q&a only or a mix of updates and q&a etc etc
HoweIn(Quote)