After Arsenal finished 2nd for a third consecutive season in 2024-25, Josh Kroenke revealed early-stage plans to expand the Emirates Stadium. 12 months later, the Gunners’ dream is getting closer.
With a first Premier League title in 22 years in the bag and thousands of Gooners making their way to Budapest for the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain on a wave of optimism, Arsenal are living in the moment right now. But when the curtain comes down on 2025-26, thoughts will turn to the future.
Expanding the Emirates by at least 10,000 seats is high on the agenda, more than two decades after the move from Highbury. The global architecture firm Populous – who designed the Emirates itself, as well as Stan Kroenke’s Ball Arena in Denver – are in talks with the club about how to proceed.
After a season in which the Emirates has been a fortress, however, one of the key issues will be finding ways to better monetise the stadium without compromising the atmosphere.
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Arsenal earned £154m through the turnstiles last season, the second-highest in the Premier League behind Manchester United. This season, they will be top of the pile and set a new record in English football. Their yield per fan is buoyed by the premium, hospitality and corporate offering, with boxes at the Emirates going for tens of thousands of pounds per match in some circumstances.
As with any 21st-century stadium redevelopment, the emphasis will inevitably be on this higher-paying class of fans. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – if the club can get the pricing structure right, those with broader shoulders can, in theory, keep matchday income increasing without over-burdening the general admission fan, who is being squeezed by a cost of living crisis.
So, what effect will the upturn in the decibel level at the Emirates this season and its ensuing impact on the pitch have on the Kroenkes’ plans to expand the stadium?
“The main changes will be quote far away from the pitch, so I don’t see there being any danger in terms of the deterioration of the atmosphere,” says University of Liverpool football finance expert Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to Arsenal Insider.
“They have now got the ultras section of the fanbase, who make a lot of noise. The Kroenkes will try to preserve some of the legacy fanbase for practical and political reasons. Their focus, however, will be on the corporate section of the fanbase who bring in the real money.
“They’ve commissioned an architect now and they can start making progress.
“I don’t anticipate any more season tickets being made available.”
Arsenal are reportedly set to record a Premier League-record of £770m in turnover in 2025-26.
In recent years, Stan Kroenke has underwritten Arsenal’s losses to the tune of almost £350m, but improvements to the squad and the increased prize money and commercial income that they have yielded mean that they should now be able to stand on their own two feet financially.
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