Kieran Maguire

Tue 14 May 2024 10:25, UK

The Nottingham Forest board are considering a “nuclear” option to abandon the City Ground and build a new stadium elsewhere.

That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who exclusively told Football Insider that Forest will consider all stadium options amid an ongoing dispute with the Nottingham council.

A project to expand the City Ground to a capacity of 40,000 has been called into question after the club’s board and council failed to agree a new lease agreement for the stadium.

As revealed by Football Insider, Forest chiefs are ready to rip up their expansion plans after the council offered a £250million lease of the stadium grounds.

One option for the club is to build an entirely new 50,000-seater stadium in Toton situated on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border.

However, those plans have faced fierce criticism from the club’s fanbase, who are pushing to stay at the historical City Ground.

Nottingham Forest chiefs prepared to ‘walk away’ from City Ground

Maguire warned that the “nuclear” option of a new stadium would prove to be very costly for the club.

“There’s clearly a fraught relationship between the head people at Forest and the local council when it comes to the City Ground,” Maguire told Football Insider’s Sean Fisher.

“The nuclear option as far as the club is concerned is to effectively walk away and move to a new stadium.

“That would be a very costly exercise as, in the post-Brexit world, construction costs and labour costs have increased significantly.

“As we have seen with Everton, increased material costs, power costs and transportation fees makes building a new stadium a very costly exercise.

“But if the Forest board feels that the council is being intransigent, then this is an option that they have to consider.“

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