‘Announcements to come’ – Leeds United chairman issues update on the future of Elland Road expansion
Leeds United chairman Paraag Marathe has expressed his excitement over the proposed expansion of Elland Road over the coming years.
Leeds United are looking towards an exciting future as they target a return to Premier League football. LUFC are on course to win promotion from the Championship at the second time of asking, sitting top of the table as it stands.
The vision for the future of the Yorkshire giants is an exciting one. Under the ownership of 49ers Enterprises, there’s hope they can become a top-flight regular in the years to come.
The growth of the club on and off the pitch will be key to progression and one of the biggest ways to expand is by growing the capacity of historic home Elland Road.
Leeds United announced plans to modernise the stadium and grow the capacity to 53,000 last summer, and chairman Paraag Marathe has been speaking about said intentions at the Financial Times’ Business of Football Summit.
As quoted by reporter Ben Jacobs, the LUFC chief hinted there are ‘probably some announcements to come’ as excitement builds over the project. He said:
“Of paramount importance is to keep the cauldron and electricity of the stadium the same as it is today. Elland Road is a stadium managers and players of other clubs don’t like playing at. It’s been called a cauldron and a hurricane of noise.
“It is really important for us to get more of our supporters into the stadium, and make it even more difficult for other clubs to come and play in, but we want to preserve some of the magic of what Elland Road is.
“We have done a lot of the pre-development work, in picking architects and working with the local council. There are probably some announcements to come and I am really excited about that.”
Priorities in the right place
Plenty of clubs have moved to new stadiums in recent years and it feels as though their priorities have not been in the right place of match-going fans and the true football experience.
Leeds United look to be eager to avoid that. While Elland Road is perhaps in need of some upgrades and modernisation, that can not be at the expense of the atmosphere.
There have been so many occasions where LUFC have drummed up a toxic home atmosphere and made it impossible for the visitors to get a word in, too many to name, in fact. Thankfully, it seems Marathe and the owners are acutely aware of this and the impact it has on the performance of the team.
Doing the job on-pitch
While Marathe and the club hierarchy look to progress Leeds United off the pitch, Daniel Farke and co are doing the job on it.
Wins over top-two rivals Sunderland and Sheffield United in back-to-back games as the Whites in a fine position to return to the Premier League. As it stands, they’re favourites for the title and in a comfortable position to secure the top two at the very least.
Up next is another challenging game against West Brom, but LUFC will be backed to pick up all three points once again.
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