Nottingham Forest need '£60m-a-year' to fund City Ground upgrade
Nottingham Forest may need sustained European football in order to fund their planned upgrades to their City Ground home.
That is according to former Everton chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who believes that the Reds have to find an extra £60million in revenue each year for the foreseeable future.
The East Midlands outfit recently saw their plans approved to redevelop their stadium and ultimately boost its capacity to 52,000, with the work set to cost around £790m.
Wyness made it clear that Oliver Glasner's side will have a sizeable "hole" to fill in their finances moving forward, with European revenue a clear way to fill it.
The Austrian boss has been brought in to help facilitate that, but things haven't gone to plan for him so far.
Forest have won just one of their opening five Premier League games, and were beaten at home by newly-promoted Coventry in their final game before the international break.
Evangelos Marinakis wants European football as 'mainstay'
Everton’s former chief Wyness – who served as CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – believes that Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis is hoping to drive them towards becoming a "mainstay" in European football.
The Greek businessman has big "ambitions" for the club, but knows that a regular place on the European stage will be the easiest way to fund the stadium upgrades.
Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider's Inside Track podcast, Wyness explained the strain that will be placed on Forest's finances.
"In terms of European football, with a big stadium like this, you're going to see obviously the increased capacity is going to be giving you extra revenue coming in," he said.
"You are going to see the non-match day increase in revenue; that would be conferences, exhibitions and all that sort of usage coming in to help, as well as big new commercial deals that you'd hope to do.
"If you're looking at the cost of £790m, you'd be looking at an annual cost of somewhere between £40m and £60m in terms of interest payments and finance charges, et cetera, and repayments.
"That's the sort of size of a hole you're going to have to have each season. So you're going to have to increase your revenue by that much, which is possible to do, but they're going to have to be cute.
"European football is a very important component in the mix, but it's not the be-all and end-all for everything.
"There's no doubting Mr Marinakis has got that ambition, and this is one way forward. European football would make things a lot easier, and he will be looking at this and thinking about European football as a mainstay, I'm sure."
Nottingham Forest to boost stadium revenue with two key features
Former Manchester City financial advisor Stefan Borson recently told Football Insider that the addition of a fan park and a big area of corporate seating are a must for Forest when redeveloping their stadium.
The football finance expert made it clear that Forest could charge lucrative package fees for high-quality corporate seating, something they don't currently have.
A fan park would also help to get fans eating and drinking in the club's venue before and after games, rather than paying the same money to local pubs and restaurants.
Borson outlined that both features will be vital for Forest to maximise their revenue, and ensure that they can extract as much revenue as possible from every seat.