'Extraordinary' - Stefan Borson baffled by cost of Nottingham Forest stadium plans

Nottingham Forest's big-money plans for the City Ground are "extraordinary" compared to other clubs in Europe.

That is according to former Manchester City financial adviser Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider that Forest's spending on stadium redevelopment makes "no sense".

The Reds have been given the green light to begin redeveloping the stadium, with plans for the Peter Taylor Stand and the Trent End over the next couple of years.

Evangelos Marinakis is clearly showing a lot of ambition, with these first plans supposedly taking the current capacity of 31,000 to 45,000.

This is, of course, expected to come at an eye-watering cost for the Forest owner, and it is understood that the total cost could come in at £790million.

Marinakis has not been afraid to splash the cash since the Reds' promotion back to the Premier League in 2022, but this is far more than expected for the upcoming project.

'can't spend nearly €1bn on the stadium'

Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson has admitted his surprise over the expected costs at the City Ground, comparing the project to Club Brugge's over in Belgium.

"It doesn't make much sense to me, to get a return on a £790m investment to how many more seats, 10,000 to 15,000?" he said.

"It's quite challenging. The thing that was interesting is that I did see during the week that there's a new stadium for Club Brugge, and it's been delayed for a short time...

"But it's costing them €200m for a 40,000-seater stadium. You just wonder how some of these English clubs get themselves into a position where the build costs are just extraordinary.

"It makes no sense. That's all you can say. You can't spend nearly a €1billion on building a stadium when Brugge are able to do it for €200m to build a brand new 40,000-seat stadium."

What further plans do have?

The Brian Clough Stand is also at the centre of Forest's plans, and the local council has agreed to the ideas in principal, but on some conditions.

With all the plans potentially increasing Forest's capacity to over 52,000, the club will be expected to manage crowd control outside of the ground.

That could mean building a new pedestrian and cycle bridge across the River Trent, which would not have been in the Reds' plans, it has to be said.

Building an entirely new bridge across the river would only add to the current costs, so it will be interesting to see if an agreement can be reached there.