Newcastle United CEO makes major 2030 claim as St James' Park expansion truth revealed
Newcastle United chief executive officer David Hopkinson has played down talk of a St James’ Park expansion or stadium move.
Newcastle United supporters should be prepared to stay at St James’ Park in its current state for the foreseeable future.
That was the overwhelming message from the club’s new chief executive officer David Hopkinson, following the We Are United supporter event at St James’ STACK this week.
Since the takeover, Newcastle have experienced an unprecedented demand for tickets at St James’ Park which has led to growing calls to expand the current 52,000-capacity site or even build a new stadium nearby.
The club issued a statement last year claiming that an update over the future of St James’ Park would be made in early 2025. Over a year on from that statement and not only has there been no tangible update, but the club have backtracked on their previous stance.
Newcastle United issue disappointing St James’ Park stance
Newcastle new CEO, who was appointed in September, admitted the club are ‘not ready’ to make a decision regarding the stadium any time soon. A warning for supporters to get used to St James’ Park as it is and has been for the past 25 years or so.
Hopkinson understood supporters would be disappointed by the update but claimed that work is still going on behind the scenes regarding a solution to Newcastle’s well-publicised stadium dilemma.
“I want to be really clear on this,” he told reporters this week. “We literally have not taken a decision on what we’re going to do.
“We’re modelling a multitude of different scenarios. But even if we were to make a decision tomorrow, which we’re not going to do, it still takes years of permits, planning, finance, construction etc.
“That’s the case whatever we choose – reimagining St James’ Park or building a new stadium. Either takes years and years. I lived through the total transformation of the Estadio Bernabeu [at Real Madrid].
“I was around through years of work. I love what they’ve built – I think we’ve learned a lot from studying what they’ve built – but these projects are years long.”
More questions than answers
The club’s new stance raises more questions than answers. Why has a decision not been made over four years into the takeover, why was an update promised then not delivered and can we expect any changes to St James’ Park from its current state?
“We’re looking at a multitude of different scenarios,” Hopkinson responded. “One of the things we are reviewing right now is that we’re going to be here [at St James’ Park], in something like the current format, for years.
“I think that there are some things we’ve maybe not done because we’ve been waiting for the bigger decision. I think we’re going to think about the phasing of this next phase of our lives, and recognise that there are things we need to do now with regard to the stadium issue.
“Maybe we incorporate that in a future renovation? Maybe we pick it up and move it with us to a new park? But recognising that we are going to be at St James’ Park in pretty much its current format for years to come is important.
“We’re thinking through what improvements should we make in that intervening period? We could make tweaks and changes to improve the here and now.”
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Hopkinson has been appointed as Newcastle CEO with the task of building revenues and commercial partnerships to help close the gap between Newcastle and the established ‘elite’ clubs in world football. The Canadian has a strong commercial background having worked as head of global partnerships at Real Madrid between 2018 and 2020 before joining Madison Square Garden Sports as president and chief operating officer.
And the timeframe it would take for Newcastle to benefit from a new stadium has seen it fall down the pecking order in the club’s immediate priorities.
“Even if we could wave a wand right now, and wake up tomorrow morning with a decision over a brand-new stadium – this is our decision and this is where we’re going – then those revenues would still not show up for five years,” Hopkinson explained.
“You’d already be beyond the 2030 horizon. But if you look at something like global partnerships and global sponsorships, which I’ve talked about a lot, then we can do that today.
“We can literally wake up tomorrow morning and get cracking on closing some of those obvious and less obvious opportunities. So much of this is self-help, and so much of our ability to increase our revenues, and therefore our competitiveness, is within our purview right now.
“They’re right in front of us, right now. I don’t know to what extent that will sustain us beyond 2030, without a major inflection – stadium renovation or rebuild, other major changes. But what I’m focusing on is what we do need to change between now and 2030?
“Our plan is to set us up to succeed in these next four or five years, and then it’s also about what steps are we taking to make sure we succeed beyond 2030?”
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Where will Newcastle United be by 2030?
Amid all the talk of 2030 and the often-maligned ‘five-year plan’ strategy, Hopkinson has set Newcastle’s ambitions high even without any tangible stadium progress.
“By 2030, I see this club being in the debate about being the top club in the world,” he said. “That’s where I see us by 2030 – and that kind of progress doesn’t take as long as you might think.
“What it takes is clarity of conviction. First off, we need to be totally aligned about the fact that that’s what we want to do. We have to have the courage to ignore those that doubt us, and even those that laugh at us. Because there will be some.
“I’ve been through this journey before. I’ve done it with a total underperformer, and that’s definitely not what Newcastle is. Newcastle is already good.
“I’ve worked at a club that was really bad [Toronto Raptors in the NBA], lost all the time. In 2014, we lost just about as bad as you can. In 2019, we were having a parade.
“So, it’s eminently doable, but it takes that clarity, conviction and commitment. I love the reference to 2030 because if it’s not time-bound, then it’s fantasy.
“Everything we’re talking about as we have articulated the transformation plan has to be time-bound. We can’t set a plan here and just think, ‘Well let’s wake up in 2030 and see where we got to’. No.
“It’s where do we need to get to by the end of 2025? Where by 2026? 2027? Where are we ahead, where are we behind? What’s our mitigation plan? How are we adjusting things?