Future
In August 2001, when Leeds were among the strongest teams in England, chairman Peter Ridsdale unveiled plans for the club to relocate to a 50,000-seat stadium in Skelton. The following month, the club's 33,250 season ticket holders were asked to vote on the proposed relocation. 87.6% of them voted in favour of relocation, but the plans were abandoned within two years following the onset of the club's financial crisis and decline in fortunes on the field.
The city of Leeds, on behalf of the Leeds City Region, submitted an application to be a Host City for the 2018 World Cup at Wembley on 26 November 2009. The club was represented by Peter Lorimer. This bid was successful on 16 December 2009.
Due to the specific stadium requirements imposed by FIFA, it is likely that the redevelopment of the Kop (North Stand) will become two-tiered to approximately the same height as the current East Stand whilst the West Stand will be completely rebuilt with an envisaged final capacity of 51,240.
The redevelopment of the East Stand for which Leeds already have planning permission will play a significant part in providing the facilities required by FIFA to stage matches in the World Cup.
Despite the English Football Association's unsuccessful bid to host the 2018 World Cup, the first phase of the East Stand redevelopment plan began in May 2011. This includes the adding of an 'executive' tier sandwiched between the lower and upper tier of the East Stand which holds boxes such as the Gary Speed Suite. The East Stand façade was also given a makeover.
Future plans for the redevelopment of the ground also include a hotel and casino.
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Famous quotes containing the word future:
“As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son’s future are counting on me.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“But what we strive to gratify, though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire; the future estate for which men drudge up city alleys exists already in their imagination and love.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)