Aberdeen Football Club’s new £38m stadium delayed by 12 months

Stadium: Aberdeen had hoped to move into the new ground for the start of the 2013/14 season.

Aberdeen FC have announced that they are delaying their move to a new stadium on the outskirts of the city for 12 months.

The Dons had hoped to move into their planned new 21,000-seat arena at Loirston Loch in time for the start of the 2013-14 season.

However the club’s chief executive Duncan Fraser has said the club are now aiming at making the move in time for the 2014-15 campaign.

Mr Fraser said: “From the outset, when we announced the original timetable, we did state it was an extremely robust and ambitious timescale and that has proved to be exactly the case.

“The issue of land assembly in the locality of the site was always going to be one of the major challenges and, while we remain confident of a positive outcome, the process has taken longer than we had originally hoped.

“While moving during the course of a season was certainly an option, that course of action was ruled out as the most appropriate time for such a move would be in the close season. In addition, there is no doubt everybody connected with AFC was extremely disappointed with the season just finished and the stadium being put back by 12 months will allow the number one focus next season to be in ensuring on the field success.

“While the delay is disappointing, such is the scale of the project, it is imperative to ensure we are not giving ourselves unrealistic deadlines to work towards and we can now carry on with planning for a further two full seasons at Pittodrie.”

Plans for the new 21,000 stadium for Aberdeen Football Club were approved by Aberdeen City Council and the Scottish Government early last year.

It was followed by approval for the sale of the existing Pittodrie Stadium site for residential use, with the proviso that work on the current home of AFC would not commence until the stadium at Loirston was completed.

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