Ipswich Town to make ‘incredible’ upgrade – Stefan Borson
Ipswich Town will have an “incredible” training ground after revealing plans to spend £20-30million on upgrading their facilities.
That is the view of finance expert Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider the key will be whether they can bring through academy players that can either play in the first team or be sold for a profit.
Ipswich, who were promoted from the Championship as runners-up last term, have long planned to improve their training facilities.
Speaking on the Life’s A Pitch podcast on 9 October, CEO Mark Ashton revealed the club are entering planning permission for a new state-of-the-art base.
He claimed the development could cost anywhere from £20-30million and added that Ipswich’s current facilities are the worst in the Premier League.
Ipswich Town training ground plan excluded from PSR calculations
Borson revealed the training ground upgrade will not be included in the club’s profit and sustainability (PSR) calculations, with top-flight sides only permitted to make a £105million loss over a rolling three-year period.
“If you spend £25million, it would make it an incredible standard I would think,” Borson told Football Insider.
“That’s a very significant investment.
“I suspect part of that is the academy. All of it is excluded from PSR calculations, so that’s one of the reasons why they would be doing it.
“It’s also good for attracting players. Lots of teams have done it in the past.
“Leicester built a state-of-the-art training centre, but it didn’t work straight away on the pitch unfortunately.
“But because it’s all outside of PSR, you actually get people willing to do it.
“The key will be whether they can bring their academy up on the back of it, that’s where the big upside is.
“If you can bring players through or you can generate assets to sell on, that pays for itself very quickly.
“But in itself, a £25million training ground is a lot of money.”
In other news, Ipswich could terminate Kalvin Phillips deal – “his head is at Leeds”.
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