Tony Bloom: Women's stadium is a 'massive statement'

Main Club Sponsor

TICKETS

SHOP

Albion chairman believes new 10,000 stadium will be regularly filled.

Nick Szczepanik

2026-04-29T21:30+01:00

Chairman Tony Bloom with Zoe Johnson (left), managing director of women's and girls' football, and Michelle Walder, chair of the women's board, at the unveiling of the new stadium plans. 📷James Boardman

Albion’s announcement of the intention to build a 10,000-seater bespoke women’s football stadium is a ‘massive statement’ of the club’s faith in the women’s game, according to chairman Tony Bloom.

And vice-chairman and chief executive Paul Barber has labelled the building of the first such stadium in Europe – and only the third worldwide – as ‘historic’.

“We have huge faith in women's football,” Bloom said. “Women's football deserves to have much better facilities and to have something for us all to be proud of. We want to raise the bar for women’s football in the UK. I think it’s a big moment and I’m proud that Brighton & Hove Albion is at the forefront.

“This is a massive statement. And hopefully it will encourage and inspire other clubs to look at what we do. I know it's not easy to get stadiums built in the UK for all sorts of reasons, but the more there are in the Women’s Super League, the better product by far the WSL will become.”

Barber described Tuesday’s announcement as “a historic day, not just for our club but for women’s football. It is a huge statement and not just for our club and our city, but the women’s game in this country and arguably across Europe and the rest of the world.

“It is setting a new standard and giving future generations a new aspiration. And most importantly, it is going to be a world-class facility, driving high performance in the women’s game. So for us it is the right thing to do, the right time to do it and we are very fortunate to have the owner we’ve got to finance it.”

The new stadium, which will be adjacent to the Amex in the parking area called Bennett’s Field, requires a new approach to stadium design, not just building a scaled-down version of the men’s facility.

Deputy chairman and chief executive Paul Barber at the Built For Her launch, where Albion's plans for a bespoke women's stadium were unveiled. 📷James Boardman

“We have had to look at this through the eyes of women and girls,” Barber said. “That means looking at the playing surface – at the moment there are a lot of injuries in the women’s game that we don’t see as often in the men’s game – the changing room facilities for women versus men, and on the spectator side the different demographic for women’s football. We are not expecting to sell as many pies and pints as at men’s matches, so the catering offer will be very different.”

At the announcement, some questioned whether the club could fill 10,000 seats when crowds for Albion’s WSL home games at Crawley are averaging just above 3,000, while others, in contrast, wondered whether the growing interest in women’s football means that more spaces will be needed.

“10,000 is ambitious, but not over-ambitious,” Barber said. “We are ‘right-sizing’ for the city and the club, and if we need more we have a 33,000-seater stadium next door. The beauty of the location is that we know the infrastructure works here, and we don’t need an extra ticket office or club shop.”

“I've got no doubt we will be regularly selling out 10,000,” Bloom added. “It may not happen immediately, but it will happen. And we may get a bit more than 10,000 seats on the site, but we're not going to get that much more. But for the big games, really big games, if we're in a Champions League quarter-final or whatever, and there's demand for 20,000, 25,000, we can have a game at the Amex.

“Unfortunately, playing at Crawley doesn't work for all sorts of reasons, wonderful though Crawley Town have been as hosts. Obviously, this is going to be magnificent and miles better, but it will be expensive [a figure of £80m was mentioned]. So we had to really look at all the options and just thought it would work. Because once you've got it, this is the long term, this is the future.”