Stadium Expansion Continually Blocked

Hi guys,

I'm managing a small Swedish team (IFK Luleå) from their bottom (in effect, fourth) division with the aspiration of trying to win the Champions League. I'm now in 2018, just finished second in the top Swedish league and have qualified for Europe.

The only problem is that it is impossible for me to make any money, which results from our terrible 3000 capacity stadium, only half of which is seats. We managed to do a tiny conversion of standing to seats about 5 seasons ago, but ever since then, my board proposes a new stadium to the council, which is blocked by them. It seems kind of odd given that my team plays well inside the Arctic Circle and that there's no other towns within a 20 mile radius from my 40,000 population town, so there'd logically be a lot of space!

It is becoming a bit of a pain now, as we haemorrhage money even though I've got a team into Europe on a wage bill of £20,000/week. Is there any event that will force construction of a new stadium (I had kind of hoped that getting into Europe might have a stadium requirement, as being promoted into the English Premier League does) or is it just a question of luck, or do we need a lot of money in the bank (we're about £1.2m in debt at the moment.) If that's the case, I'd loathe to sell any of my young African stars but it may be the only way.

Thanks!

Ignoring whether the council will ever allow it or not I'd not imagine you'd get a new stadium, or much expansion done being that much in debt?? £1.2m in the red seems a lot for a club that size.

I'd have figured the same as well, but they suggest it every season. It's a bit of a party pooper as we're stuck in a negative cycle where we get no money, so we can't pay proper wages and thus can't really do any better (ie win the league so as to benefit from the Champions' League generous payouts, as the EUROPA League appears to be much less willing to give out millions of pounds) and can't clear our debt to build youth facilities, a new stadium etc.

Ignoring the debt (so presuming I sold a couple of players, for example), is it probable that an expansion may be permitted in the future, or do some councils have a simple blanket ban on new stadiums in the game?

Yeah it's Catch 22, can't afford to do what's needed to make the money. Some of Lower League Manager peeps might be able to advise better than me.

Am not sure if the council will ever allow it, not had that problem before or when I have I've moved on after being turned down the 2nd time. It might be just time to pack those snowshoes and head off to somewhere whose ambition matches your own.

A take over could possible be your best hope for getting a stadium, but there is no real way to predict if or when that might happen, money wise tho your kinda stuck, you'd have to sell your best players to make money which in turn would hurt your euro ambitions, the joys of LLM

Haha, it does seem like a bit of a pickle. I did ponder taking over at Sunderland (one of my two local clubs when I'm at uni) but felt I wanted to take Luleå to the Champions League, give the tiny Arctic town something they'd never had before! Took me a while to work out what LLM meant, to me it's Master of Laws which I'm applying for at the moment, although if I could incorporate that into my applications that'd be great

Thanks so much for your help guys, I might have a bit of a look at the LLM forum then, see if they can offer me any help on what might have happened in similar circumstances!

I've never see a big expansion or even a new stadium being build unless the club has a quite substantial bank balance, so I guess the debt may well be the main reason here.

The only thing which makes me wonder here is that in this case it should be the board blocking a new stadium with an according answer, but not any council after the board proposed to build the stadium. This sounds more like the problem may lie elsewhere or be due to your balance being taken into account in a way is definitely shouldn't.

I'm managing Annan Athletic and when I was in the Scottish First Division my board gave me a new stadium from 2000 to 10433 capacity. I only had 350k in the bank and they took out at 3.5 million loan.

what's your charimen like ? is he a sugardaddy or a dude that just refuses to plough cash, big cash into the coffers ? all you can do is keep trying and eventually you will have to have it upgraded or your club will be banned from European competition, and your chairman/club would not like that to happen

Say what? Banned from european competition?

Chairman is the guy who was in charge of the club when I took over, and has never pumped any money into the club at all (other teams I've been at in past games, the chairman has put £100k here and £50k there to stop the debt from getting too bad.) He does still love the club and to be fair I'm happy having him as chairman as I always seem to get the boot when takeovers happen.

Started making some money though, some foolish teams bought a reserve keeper of mine for £850k and a reserve winger for £875k. That pretty much single handedly wipes out the debt I have, so maybe next season will be the one. I do have a way better squad this time round (my share of that transfer money was put to good use in shoring up the only weakness in my team) so maybe I'll reach the promised land of the Champions League, having beaten last season's winners easily in the Super Cup. I guess all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that we generate some money, and if the council continues to block our stadium expansion attempts, maybe we can slip them some of that money! It's just a shame Swedish football has so little money in it.