Bournemouth vital deal to buy Vitality Stadium

The Cherries (the Premier League team AFC Bournemouth) have agreed on terms to purchase the Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth, Dorset, England (UK) from the property company Structadene.

‘DAILY ECHO’ stated that originally sold to the company in December 2005 for £3.5million by the struggling club forced to sell their home for much of their history in an attempt to buy time to sort out their debt.

The AFC Bournemouth is a professional association football club based in Kings Park, Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, Dorset, England (UK). They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football.

The Dean Court, currently known as the Vitality Stadium for sponsorship purposes, is a football stadium in Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, Dorset, England (UK) and is the home ground of the AFC Bournemouth. The stadium has a capacity to hold 11,307 spectators.

Islington (UK)-based Structadene is a private property investment and development company primarily focusing on commercial and residential properties.

‘DAILY ECHO’ further stated that in recent years the club has been weighing up redeveloping the current stadium or to move to a new ground.

But now the club Owner and Chairman Bill Foley has confirmed that the AFC Bournemouth have settled on redeveloping the current Dean Court and they have agreed on a deal to purchase the stadium.

Speaking at the official opening of ‘The Cherries’ new multimillion-pound performance center the American billionaire confirmed the club is making progress on the stadium plans.
He also indicated that other options were explored but they decided on redevelopment as the way forward.

Foley told at the event, “I have one other announcement to make and I’m pleased to inform you that we have come to terms on the acquisition of the Vitality Stadium and we should be closing that shortly. And we also are preparing our pre-application to the Council with regard to expanding and renovating the stadium with the goal being within two and a half years we’ll have 20,000 seats. With the further goal, if things work out well, to go into 23,000 seats. It’ll allow us to provide more hospitality, it’ll allow us to take care of some of the 15,000 people that are currently on our waiting list and the stadium will be completely renovated. It’s going to be beautiful. And we looked at other options. We looked at building a new stadium and working that out, we finally decided it would take us about five or six years. So, in this case, we will renovate this stadium and we’ll do it in such a way that no fans will be disrupted, it won’t be shut down, everyone will have their seat and then we’ll move forward and be able to start expanding our base.”

Continue to follow Coliseum for latest updates on venues business news. Coliseum is dedicated towards building the best global community of sports and entertainment venue executives and professionals creating better and more profitable venues.

Become a member of the only Global Sports Venue Alliance and connect with stadiums, arenas and experts from around the world. Apply for membership at www.coliseum-online.com/alliance and make use of the 365Coliseum Business.