Could the Walkers Stadium host 2018 World Cup games
The Walkers Stadium is the arena where Leicester City play their home games. It was built and opened in 2002, and was named after snack food manufacturers Walkers, after a seven digit sponsorship deal was struck with Leicester City. The deal involved naming rights for ten years, meaning that the deal will expire in 2012. Every seat has an unobstructed view of the pitch, and this makes it a fine stadium to stage the 2018 World Cup. The only drawback is the number of seats which adds up to 32500.
World Cup Games in Leicester?
The cost of this stadium was one of the factors that led to Leicester City going into receivership. Leicester were also relegated to the Championship. This financial crisis meant that Leicester had to pass the stadium ownership to an American company called Teachers Insurance, who had supplied £28 million in a bond scheme towards the construction of the stadium. Milan Mandaric took over the financially stricken club in October 2006 in a £25 million deal. A reported £15 million of these went to buy back the stadium from Teachers Insurance. Mandaric said that he dreams of Leicester becoming a dominant club in English football in the near future, and also increasing the stadium capacity to 45000 seats. This would mean that if these plans were to be successful, the Walkers Stadium (or whatever it would be called after the expiry of the naming rights deal) would be one of the first choices to stage games in World Cup 2018.
The England national team played a friendly in the Walkers Stadium back in June 2003 against Serbia & Montenegro, a game which England won 2-1. In October 2003, the stadium staged a friendly between Brazil and Jamaica, which Brazil won 1-0. More recently, the arena was used for an U21s game between England and Serbia & Montenegro. England won this game 1-0 with the sole goal coming from Matt Derbyshire.
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Nottingham for the East Midlands venue
Walkers Stadium all the way!! The best stadium in East Midlands!!
Public transport in and out of the city would need to be massively improved because trains serving Leicester are very few and ludicrously far between.
The major problems affecting the three main East Midland cities of Nottingham, Derby and Leicester are that they all lack any real tourist draw, financial clout and sex appeal. They are not particularly very nice places to come and visit. So from a financial and tourisit perspective the East Midlands may not even host any games at all (hopefully from a geographic perspective this will not be the case). Also, as of right now, there are no stadiums in the East Midlands having a greater capacity in excess of 34,000.
Derby has the best stadium out of the three but it’s probably the least attractive of the three cities. The stadium is very far away from the city centre and the city is rather drab to say the least.
Leicester is the largest city in the East Midlads. However, there are two very popular sports teams. The city plays host to two popular sports teams which both have stadiums which can hold in excess of 30,000 plus now that the Tigers have finished their new Welford Road ground and any expansion of the Walkers could be rather optimistic in terms of filling the groud after the 2018 World Cup.
Nottingham has great footballing tradition in Forest and what with Sven Goran Erikson helping to rejuventate the oldest football league club in the world of County the romantics and the fat cats at the FA Headquarters at Soho Square down in London would probably prefer Nottingham over Leicester and Derby.
Whoever wins, they’ll need to do a hell of a lot of work in making their city centres far more appealing to the international tourist.
Personally, its got to be the Walkers but only time will tell…
Sorry Ben but Nottingham is a bigger city than Leicester and in terms of tourist attractions surely Robin Hood and the castle of Nottingham are at least of international renown
chris, im sorry mate, please do your homework! nottingham is not noway bigger than leicester. leicester is officaly the second biggest city in the midlands! birmingham is first, plus, leicester joint 7th biggest city in uk!dont just chk 1 site, do your homework, plus, sorry mate, leicester has by faR got the more potential in buissness and football! notthingham dwell on the past to much! the club surprised everyone winnig the european cup nomind twice, for a small club, thats wat they are, a small club, forest or county will never be a premier force again! but city have got the potential to be massive! thats y top buissnessman want to buy us and not forest or derby!!! FACT! SORRY BRO BUT ONLY SPEAK THE TRUTH! OH, BY THE WAY, ROBIN HOOD FROM SHEFFIELD NOT NOTTINGHAM!no proof he from notts! fact! all speculation!
oh, by the way, please please will you people from notts and derby go look on google earth!! and when you all have, please stop saying east midlands airport is in derby or nottingham!!! its in leicestershire!! its our airport!!! its situated inside the leicstershire border! not 1 inch of that airport is outside of leicestershire!! FACT!! GO TAKE A LOOK!! AND STOP CALLING LEICESTER AIRPORT YOURS!!
Yes Chris Leicester is the UKs 10th largest city and has a much larger population than Nottingham. Nottinghams population has been dropping for 40 years whilst leicesters has continued to increase. The Urban area of Nottingham is larger than Leicesters however this is not the city area. Leicester def gets my vote massive developments and regeneration are taking place, 5 new buildings approved over 20 floors one at 39 floors will get built in leicester, Nottingham your way behind.
Wriggydean, I can’t really take you seriously, based on your comments.
An it’s not relevant that the airport is in Leicestershire, do your homework, it’s closer to Nottingham and Derby.
And it’s also not important about the size of the city, Nottinghams transport infastructure, stadium plans, and regeneration make it look the most appealing to me out of the 3 city’s.
This shouldn’t be about local rivalries anyway, it should be about ensuring that the East Midlands sees as much action as possible.
First of all, it looks to me as though that planned new stadium in Nottingham will not get built do to arguments between the two councils in Nottingham, so forget Nottingham.The city ground is just to out dated and even extended wouldnt look great. Derby is just to small a city and the ground is to far away from the city centre. Leicesters train station is to be increased in size, it has direct routes to London and has both the M1 and M69 motorways, its truly a multi racial city and has undergone a big regeneration that continues.Leicester holds the second largest carnival each year in the uk so can deal with large volumes of people.The fact is that if Nottinghams councils dont make an agreement the world cup wont be coming your way!!!
The City Council will still build the stadium, I don’t care if it’s on greenbelt land. The county council aren’t needed.
Nottingham will be included.
I think it has to come to leicester we are a multi cultural city, we have a good fan base, and will become a big club and could fill 45,000 seater staduim when we are back in the premier league, both Derby and Forest would committ financial suicide winning the bid as they simply dont have the financial backing as Leicester has. Plus we are centrally midlands based with road links to A14 for east of england M69 to M40 for west London M1 for North London, and the airport is officially not in Nottingham it is infact more Leicestershire or Derbyshire. And the World cup would love the Birch!!! (though he could be quite old by then)
Leicester doesen’t have realy any appeal.
The walker stadium is one of the new, bland, boring stadiums, and the city has no venues.
I doubt Leicester will be included.
wriggydean: “, for a small club, thats wat they are, a small club, forest or county will never be a premier force again! but city have got the potential to be massive!”
Well, losing 5-1 to a “Small Club” isn’t the right way way to become massive!