New, Smaller Aberdeen Stadium Expected 2025-26 Season At The Earliest

At their recent AGM, Aberdeen FC revealed plans to limit their new stadium’s capacity to between 16,000-17,000 fans. Their Chairman, Dave Cormack, claims this could save the club £16m in costs.

Elaborating, Mr Cormack stated that 30% of season ticket holders do not turn up each week, which convinced them to lower the new stadium capacity: "The basic equation for building a stadium is cost per seat. We may have a choice over quality or a more basic stadium."

Currently Pittodrie Stadium can accommodate more than 20,000 spectators. In previous seasons, the Aberdeen would frequently have attendances nearer this capacity for European ties, and games against Rangers and Celtic.

"We want a stadium that rocks every week, that's full," Cormack said after the club's annual meeting. "Rather than spend £16m on 4,000 seats that you might use two or three times a year, why don't we allow the fans to basically sell their ticket to someone who might want to walk up to a game?

"We think 16,000-17,000 so far is the optimal number. But, if we achieve our goal of 15,000 season ticket holders, 30% don't turn up, that's 10,500 in the stadium. Even if all 15,000 turn up, maybe 1500 walk up and you let 500 away fans in, you've got a great atmosphere.

"It's all about the maximising the capital investment."

While The Dons wish to leave their current home of Pittodrie, they now believe the earliest a new ground will be ready will be for the 2025-26 season.

AFC have planning permission to build a new stadium next to their training ground at Kingsford, which is six miles away from the centre of the city. Recently though, Aberdeen City Council have suggested a location just 1,000 yards from their current Pittodrie home, by proposing plans to incorporate the club into a joint facility next to the Beach Ballroom.

"It's an option we're looking at," Cormack said. "That's exciting when you look at the images that have come out. But we're at step one on the business case. Once we have the business case, that will allow us to go out and look at the funding options to see how we do this.

"It's clearly an exciting project for the city. And that it could be net zero, renewable energy, hydrogen whatever based, fully heated and powered, would likely be a first. If not in Europe, the world."

Despite last month’s recommendation by an Aberdeen council committee that the club would have to fund the stadium themselves, Cormack says that does not make building at the beach less appealing: "We've got to build a stadium at Kingsford on our own anyway and this site was never available to the club," he said.

Images Credit: Aberdeen FC / Aberdeen City Council