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Manchester City will wait before pursuing Etihad development plans

Manchester City will consider the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on venues and live events before resuming plans to enhance and expand Etihad Stadium.

The Premier League club has previously outlined plans to expand the stadium’s north stand since adding 6,000 extra seats to the east stand ahead of 2015-16, but chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak told the club’s website that it would be unwise to commit to new projects in the current climate.

While the Etihad Stadium has also seen a redesign of the home dressing room and introduction of the Tunnel Club hospitality in recent years, it seems other developments – such as the Blue Wall, inspired by Borussia Dortmund’s Yellow Wall – are, for now at least, on the back burner.

“The word here is pragmatism and sensibility. Some of the projects continue and we see the sense of expediting them, others because of the challenges that come with Covid we had to put on pause,” said Al Mubarak.

“The expansion of the stadium, the changes that we wanted to do with hospitality, we’re going to have to figure out as it goes what is going to be the expectation post-Covid in the stadium and what is going to work and what isn’t going to work.

“One thing is clear is that we can’t think in the same way, we have to adjust and accept what Covid has done will have an impact on the future. We have to be ready to adjust to that.”

City have played at the 55,000-capacity arena since 2003, with the stadium having been built initially to stage the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

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