December 17 – Hull City’s future as a Premier League club could be threatened by the decision not to include the KC Stadium in England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup, the club’s chairman has claimed.
Hull had planned to extend the KC Stadium’s capacity to 44,000 if it had been chosen but they missed out, along with Derby and Leicester, when the 17 potential stadiums in 12 cities were announced by England 2018 on Wednesday.
The Tigers had been hoping that inclusion in England’s bid would allow them to expand the current capacity of 25,404 - the fourth smallest in the Premier League - and increase their revenues.
But Adam Pearson said that that plan was now on indefinite hold.
He said: ”Ground development is severely affected by this decision.
“We hope the capacity will be increased at some stage but those hopes have been dented.
“I can’t put a time-line on things but the decision has made things extremely difficult to improve on our current capacity of 25,000.
“I was hoping three under-21 internationals, four [Rugby League] Test matches and all the concerts we’ve done here would help us get this, but they’ve gone with Bristol which has never had those sort of events so good luck to them.”
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