Everton is one of England’s oldest club teams and was founded in 1878. The Merseyside team built Goodison Park in 1888 and, at the time, it was the largest soccer stadium in England. Goodison Park is a historic soccer stadium and has been the location for more top-flight soccer games than any other stadium in the country. But now, the over 100 year-old stadium is finally being decommissioned, and a new stadium is being built. The new Everton Stadium is set to open for the 2024-2025 season. With the new stadium being built, the club may face many challenges to meet the requirements of a qualified Premier League stadium.
All English top-flight teams must meet the criteria laid out in the annually released Premier League handbook, which lays out the standards each team must meet with respect to the team's roster, salary, jerseys, stadiums, and much more. As each new portion of Everton Stadium is built, they must have it approved by the Premier League Board prior to construction beginning. This article will discuss the recent renovations of the new stadium and how they meet Premier League Standards.
Everton has made a website giving fans updates on the construction being done. On June 2, 2023, the team uploaded aerial drone footage of the stadium, as well as showing the progress of the dressing rooms and media interview booths. As per the 2022-23 Premier League Handbook, there must be dressing rooms for both teams and separate dressing rooms for the officiating crew. The dressing room must include showers, bathrooms, and changing facilities in a room larger than 30m². Each Stadium must also have a designated space for media personnel. As per the handbook, this space must be a working area for the use of accredited representatives of the media and Broadcasters, and this area must be located in the same stand as the Players’ dressing rooms. It must comprise a room of a minimum 50m² and must be supplied with 25 individual or linked workstations, each of which shall have its own desk, chair, electricity supply, and internet connectivity as set out in Rule K.45. These are just the specific guidelines for the two aspects of the stadium being mentioned in Everton's June 2nd update. Each portion of Everton Stadium must be approved by the League Board prior to construction, and the club, fortunately, appears to be meeting each requirement.
Everton is taking the steps to retire one of the most historic soccer stadiums in England and is on pace to give their fans a brand new, updated stadium (meeting the requirements of the league) for the 2024-25 Premier League Season.
Evan Lautato, Rising 2L at St. John’s University of Law School, 1L Representative for the Entertainment and Sports Law Society, www.linkedin.com/in/evan-lautato-a4bb14178
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