Town chairman and CEO Mark Ashton says there’s no timescale for a rebuild of the Cobbold Stand as yet, but that the club is working on an estate strategy and that facilities and a home for the Ipswich Town Foundation are the next big key focus.
The Cobbold Stand is now more than 50 years old and a replacement has been a long-term plan since the Gamechanger 20 takeover in 2021.
Asked whether there is a timescale for its redevelopment at tonight’s Fans’ Focus, where he was joined by manager Kieran McKenna and Ed Schwartz from the ORG, the Blues’ majority shareholder, Ashton says the plans will be part of wider stadium improvements with work currently ongoing at Playford Road, which he revealed was costing £40 million, more than the £30 million previously indicated.
"No, there isn’t,” he said. "We’ve put so much time, effort and resource into the training ground, fans may have seen the video that we put out last week trying to give people an update on what we were doing. We’re actually going to do part two of that on Friday this week to go out next week and update supporters on what we’re doing at Portman Road.
"We’ve done a lot of bulk and scale work on capacity, space we would need. We have an agreement with the local authority to go to the back of Portman Road so we can just extend the base of the stand out, we can then cantilever further.
"I think one thing is for sure, it will be a big stand. It’s going to need a big stand, but [chief financial officer] Tom [Ball]’s going to lead on that project on what goes into the stand.
"The stand, whilst it’s going to house 20-plus games a season here at Portman Road, it’s got to operate commercially 365 days a year. It’s got to drive revenue because again, to be a sustainable Premier League football club, to look at the levels of your Brightons, your Aston Villas have done, we have to drive revenues.
"So we’ve got to look at revenues outside the normal running of a football club. That stand will need to facilitate that.
"But what you have to do is you've got to come up with a masterplan for the stadium on how everything flows. And I think we’re looking at some really exciting projects in and around Portman Road, and if we get the majority of them away, let alone all them, we will create something quite special.”
Quizzed on finding a sponsor for the West Stand, Ashton added: "It’s not really a focus for us at the moment. Andrew Wood has joined us as chief revenue officer. He’s joined us from IMG Singapore, [before that had] five years at City Group. He’s Australian, so he's looking forward to a good whooping in the Ashes!
"Andrew’s been brought to work with the already really good people in the commercial team in the revenue stream to actually bring them together and to look to drive global revenues, build a partnership with Ed Sheeran, leverage everything that we’ve got to really drive the revenues for the football club.
"But with regard to the West Stand, Tom Ball’s leading on the project now to really look at the estate strategy for the football club.
"So, rather than do something in isolation, we’re looking at all of the property. We’re looking at the practice pitch, we’re looking at the car parks, we’re looking at the Cobbold Stand, we’re looking at the space behind the Cobbold Stand, we’re working very closely with the local authority, who have been really supportive, at how we can really drive revenues.
"Because, from my perspective, I see the route map through to sustainable Premier League football. When we bought this football club, revenues were flat at around £16 million. Pre-player trading, we’d have been at around £160 million worth of revenue last year.
"Revenues, even though we don’t have the full broadcast money from the Premier League this season, will be really strong again. It’ll be a record-breaking commercial year in the Championship again.
"So I understand what sustainable revenues in the Premier League need to look like to give Kieran the firepower in Financial Fair Play to make sure we’re competitive on the pitch.
"And to do that, we have to build out the stadium. We have to complete the training ground, we have to build out the stadium and one of the things that I hope fans would appreciate [is that] we spend hours and hours each year debating season ticket prices.
"And the feedback that we’ve had from fans this season on the 10 per cent rise that we did was that that was really fair. And I understand there are economic challenges in the country and we want to make sure that we deliver affordable football and pack out Portman Road, because a packed out Portman Road, wherever we are signing players from, they’re all saying the same thing - this place is something really, really special.
"So lots of work to do, but as you’ve seen with this ownership group, we’re not afraid to deliver.”
Regarding the Ipswich Town Foundation, which was relaunched as the Ipswich Town Community Trust 18 months before the takeover and has been built on in the years since, Ashton says the club is looking for a base of its own.
"We’ve seen the growth of the foundation over the last three or four years,” he added. "I think circa-9,000 participants every single week now are being affected through the football club positively and the use of the brand motivating and engaging people. Our disability activities sit at the core of that.
"The foundation goes from strength to strength. I think one of the key projects we want to really look at now is infrastructure for the foundation.
"We have a desire to find a permanent home for the foundation, which would mean facilities, training pitches and a permanent place so we can actually really go from strength to strength and not only increase the work that we’re doing at Portman Road, but also the outreach work.
"And in partnership with the local authority and all the agencies that we work with, I think that’s something that we will look to do. But facilities and a home for the foundation are the next big key focus.”
Regarding whether Town will continue their kit deal with Umbro once the current deal is up at the end of next season, Ashton said: "We have we have another year in the current contract. The kit designs [for 2026/27] have been done, they seem to get earlier and earlier each year and that’s a huge debate.
"As we enter the last year with Umbro, as we do with any commercial deal, we will look at the market, we’ll look at all the opportunities and we’ll see what is the best fit to take us forward.
"But Umbro have been a really good partner for us. They may be with us even longer, but we’ll look at the market, we’ll explore the market over the next 12 months.”