It's decision day today.

19th exec board meeting is it not?

Yep. It's next week. Most exec boards are open to the public too, if anyone can't wait for the press release

I thought they'd previously said the meeting was on the 12th.
I guess I must have made that up.
Whoops.

There is a bit of speculation about the future of Ellen's roand I.E buy back and redevelop or even. Move all would be revealed in June if mr Raddrizzanni takes full control. I have experienced tre!mendous atmospheres at E R at those games mentioned earlier

Elland Road isn't in Timbuktu, it's a couple of miles down the road and a lot of the fans already come from 'South of the River'

Doesn't stop 2/3rds of it being a dump - a bit like Headingley so Leeds should be equally at home

Bit harsh, say what you will of the suburb but the level of corporate hospitality, bars and other amenities in the ground coupled with the ease of which you can get there both by car, coach or public transport from within and outside the city can only attract more people who ordinarily wouldn't bother with Headingley.

yeah but we don't sell 37k tickets every week so if we do pack it out, by definition we are going to need to attract some people we dont normally attract.

or you open 2 stands down the side?

if we were at ER, I'd have the top tier, south stand and corners closed. Give away fans the side where LUFC away fans go too.

So this time next week we will know what is going to happen regarding where we will be playing ?

Not too sure about where we will be playing, but what we will know is for certain the timescales and start dates / contractors providing it all gets the go ahead on Wednesday.

Thanks yes I meant that too

Why would we sell an extra 20,000 tickets just because we were a few miles down the road? If moving to that location would attract a few more who live closer you could also assume some who are nearer Headingley wouldn't travel.

What cost would we incur to play there assuming that Leeds United aren't just going to give us use of it for free? Loss of corporate, food + drunk money also. And how much cash would you have to throw at a marketing campaign to attract a significantly higher attendance?

All added together the cost for what in reality is little reward makes the move questionable. One things for certain we wouldn't break 20,000 just because we played at a larger stadium.

If we were to play at Elland Road I would have the east and north stand for home fans, with the south stand for away fans and the west stand closed.

Doing both the north and south stand at the same time may bring the cost of construction down considerably, somewhat compensating for the cost of hiring out Elland Road for a year.

Is Elland Road still owned by Leeds City Council? They may give us more favourable terms than Leeds United would.

Not council owned. I'm not even sure we'd be dealing with LUFC as they don't own it either.

I imagine Leeds would use West, North and East (lower tier) if they played at Elland Road. However it would be a very unsatisfactory place for us to be playing home games, both geographically, atmospherically and financially. I imagine Leeds have been floating alternatives such as Odsal and the cricket pitch in an effort to convince LUFC that they do not have them over a barrel. The financial loss of not playing at Headingley could be quite grievous without the right terms so they do need to be careful about taking such a decision.

The idea that 20,000 more fans will suddenly appear is dubious. Personally I'd probably be fine with skipping home games vs the likes of Widnes or Salford if we were playing over there.

Elland Road is owned by property developer Jacob Adler and his company MBH Investments

Leeds United pay rent to use the ground just like we would have to

It will be interesting to see where we play when/If the redevelopment goes ahead
I don't envisage us paying top dollar to hire Elland Road,We would also lose all game day income streams too, So Elland Road would be very expensive over all,Unless they give us favourable rates

Could we realistically still play home games at HQ whilst the building work is going on as GH has intimated?
I think that a deal will be struck with much more favourable rates for us to play games at Odsal

How long will the redevelopment works take?

We wouldnt sell an extra 20k tickets just because we were a few miles down the road. Hence we would also need to reach people we wouldnt normally reach.

We know the financials pay off when we play at elland road. In fact, we know the club will make enough of a profit from it that they once paid out £90k to open the top tier of the family stand. Regardless profit isnt the primary motive. It is a selling opportunity to get more people through the door once for these 'event' games, the profit coming when some of them stick and come to headingley when its completed.

I'm not sure but the joint stand needs to be finished asap in 2019.
So no more than 2 years from now.
Around 18 months would be my best guess.

Profit has to be the primary motive. Playing away from Headingley without the right deal could be crippling just when the club needs steady income.

Let's not imagine 30,000 crowds which won't happen. In the real world it is a case of assessing how much more money a 15,000 crowd would bring at Headingley compared to the same at Elland Road. And I imagine they are pretty scary figures for the Leeds board.

Who are these people we don't normally reach that would come just because it's Elland Road?



That was for a WCC. And what are these 'event' games? We have play run of the mill league games somewhere. If we have to play some of our Super 8 games there then we don't get to decide who are home fixtures are and they could well be against Catalans and Salford and you aren't going to get good crowds.

The ones who will attend big games at elland road but don't at Headingley. Plus any of the other 700k people in the city who currently don't attend Headingley.

We make them event games. Like we did with the WCC, like Wigan do with 'the big one' like Saracens do at Wembley.