Liverpool FC have postponed the results of their supporters’ ticket ballot due to uncertainty over the new Anfield Road Stand’s capacity.
Supporters who entered the ticket ballot were due to receive their results on Monday, but instead a club email has explained that this has been postponed “until we have confirmation of the total stand capacity from Liverpool City Council’s licencing team.”
The new Anfield Road Stand is due to be completed in time for the opening home game against Bournemouth on August 19, although there has been speculation that it could face delays.
The initial planning application for the expansion of the upper tier expected the Anfield Road Stand to accommodate 15,967 supporters, taking Anfield’s overall capacity to 61,015, however these numbers were only provisional.
As This Is Anfield exclusively revealed earlier this year, in a Q&A with the stadium operations manager, some uncertainly remained until the old roof was removed and construction is complete.
At present, fewer than 50 percent of the actual seats are installed in the upper tier, while a new, small block in the lower tier is yet to be built (below).
Once the stand itself is complete, the club are required to undertake in small test events in order to acquire the licence from the City Council.
The aim was that contractors The Buckingham Group would hand over the site to the club at the end of July, but there are doubts that that will be possible.
The letter to supporters in full reads:
We hope you’re having a nice summer and we can’t wait to welcome you back to Anfield for the new Premier League season.
We were planning to inform you today with the outcome of the Members’ ticket ballot for the first half of the season. We have decided to postpone those results and the ticket sale itself for a few more weeks while work continues on our fantastic Anfield Road Stand build.
To avoid any potential disruption to you, we wanted to wait until we have confirmation of the total stand capacity from Liverpool City Council’s licencing team.
The ballot results will now be published on Monday 31st July 2023 with the full Members’ sale starting from Tuesday August 8th 2023.
Everyone connected to the club is so excited to see and hear the difference this new stand will make next season but we are taking a prudent approach and will be following this thorough process with our colleagues at Liverpool City Council.
Safety is always our priority and, as with any major stadium build that involves thousands of people, we have test events planned next month after which we will receive a licence from Liverpool City Council to operate the new stand and confirm the total capacity.
We hope you agree that postponing the sale and waiting until we have more certainty is in the best interests of our supporters.
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