Nottingham Forest facing backlash as City Ground expansion set to hit residents in pocket
Nottingham Forest are facing a backlash from local residents who could be left out of pocket by the club’s £790m expansion of the City Ground.
As part of the planning permission granted to increase the capacity of their 31,000-seater stadium to 52,000, Forest have agreed to contribute £4.17m towards improving surrounding travel and transport infrastructure.
The area around the City Ground is already heavily congested on match days and concerns have been raised about the impact of a 68 per cent increase in footfall when work is complete.
The upgrades include £424,900 for improved walking and cycling routes and £990,000 for a new controlled parking zone covering street parking within a 25-minute walk of the stadium, affecting around 4,800 spaces.
But City AM can reveal Rushcliffe Borough Council’s planning committee did not require Forest to fund residents’ permits, despite suggestions they should, meaning locals will likely be forced to pay for their own.
Forest declined to comment, with sources insisting they would make a significant financial contribution and it was up to the county council to determine how it was spent. However, the council confirmed the £990,000 does not include a provision for parking permits.
Phase one of the expansion will see the Peter Taylor Stand demolished and rebuilt, alongside major upgrades to the Trent End. Phase two, yet to be fully ratified, will redevelop the Brian Clough Stand. No official start date has been confirmed for the £790m project.
X-rated chairman not done yet
The former chairman of the Northern Premier League who was forced to step down after telling a fan to “go fuck yourself” is hoping to continue working in non-league football, City AM has been told.
Mark Harris had been in the role for 17 years when he became entangled in a bitter dispute – over a fixture between FC United and Stockton Town postponed six times due to concerns over FC United’s pitch – that cost him his job in April.
The NPL decided to move the crunch fixture, in which FC United could win the title, to nearby Curzon Ashton at the end of the season, prompting FC United fan Aled Duckfield to email NPL board members accusing them of “incompetence” in a scathing message. Harris replied: “Thank you for your lovely email. Now go fuck yourself.”
Harris was a director at multiple non-league clubs before becoming the NPL chairman and is said to be seeking another role at a club.
Coventry ask for extra time
Coventry City have raised eyebrows by extending their accounting period to 13 months for their promotion-winning 2025-26 season.
Frank Lampard’s side made the change after winning the Championship to return to the Premier League for the first time in 25 years. Coventry became the eighth newly-promoted side to lose their opening four games of the Premier League season.
Clubs sometimes argue that they extend accounting periods for housekeeping, though it can also be a convenient permitted tool used by clever accountants to comply with spending rules.
Coventry did not respond to a request for comment.
Padel takes on illegal betting
Premier Padel has signed a partnership with Sportradar to monitor suspicious betting activity as it looks to burnish its mainstream credentials.
The sport’s popularity has soared in recent years and its leading professional tour came to London for the first time in the summer. But that brings with it increased exposure to sophisticated illegal gambling networks that attempt to influence results or convince athletes to work with them.
To combat the problem, Sportradar will use its Universal Fraud Detection System to flag suspicious activity. Sportradar already works with some of the world’s leading sport governing bodies and competitions, including Uefa, Fifa, Wimbledon and the NBA, monitoring more than 1m sporting events every year, and can detect fraud, match fixing and doping offences.
Oldham at war with local news site
Oldham Athletic have refused stadium access to reporters from The Oldham Owl, a hyperlocal news website charging only £1 per month for access.
The publication attempted to send two young reporters to a match but the club rejected the applications, citing unspecified allegations against The Oldham Owl’s editor, who previously edited the club’s match programme. The editor, Will Holdaway, denies the claims.
Oldham did not respond to a request for comment.
More Saudi money exits golf
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has continued its dramatic retreat from funding sport and women’s golf is the latest to lose out. PIF has cancelled its five-event Global Series, which had a total prize pool of £11.4m – more than half of the Ladies European Tour’s prize fund.
It follows PIF’s decision in April to pull its multibillion-dollar support for LIV Golf, saying it was “no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF’s investment strategy”. LIV Golf later filed for bankruptcy.
PIF is still backing a standalone LPGA-Ladies European Tour event, set to take place in the UK next July. But its £3m prize pot represents a 74 per cent cut in funding for women’s golf.