Birmingham City choose Mace for stadium stand construction job

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Birmingham City stand redevelopment
Image credit: Birmingham City FC

Birmingham City Football Club have announced that international consultancy and construction company, Mace, has been appointed as Construction Manager with immediate effect.

The project that the club have been working on was the stadium’s Tilton and Kop stands that have been partially shut since 2020 due to asbestos damage. Due to finance issues from both the club and the previous contractor Buckingham Group, this construction work is still in progress.

This change to Mace as manager is a required change for Birmingham City to make, because Buckingham Contracting Group collapsed into administration which put the whole project on hold and with an uncertain future.

The completion of this project will be a huge welcome boost for the club as the Lower Tilton safe standing area will be home to more than 3,000 Blues fans and The Kop Lower Stand will accommodate an additional 3,600 fans. The capacity of St. Andrew’s Stadium will be close to 30,000 after completion.

Birmingham City Chief Executive Officer Garry Cook explained the decision to appoint Mace in a club press release.

“On behalf of all Blues fans I would like to thank the Mace team for stepping forward and helping us in our time of need. By appointing Mace to the construction management role we have ensured we will be in a position to achieve our goal of having close to 30,000 Blues fans, in person at St. Andrew’s, supporting the team later this autumn,” he explained via press release.

“Sub-contractors who have worked so hard to get us to this point will now have the opportunity to finish the work they have started. More than 50% of our sub-contractors live in and around Birmingham so it is important that we have been able to get them back to work so quickly,

“I would like to thank the Buckingham Group team members for their commitment and passion to the Birmingham City project. They are professionals who find themselves in a challenging situation. Our hope is that they all find new and rewarding opportunities in the very near future.”

Mace Consult Dan Easthope discussed what the plan was for Mace in the upcoming weeks, adding via Birmingham City press release:

“Over the coming weeks, Mace will be drawing on our global expertise in stadium and venue delivery, working closely with Birmingham City Football Club and all of the suppliers currently supporting the project to ensure that the remaining work can continue with the minimum of disruption.” he said.

“Although the circumstances are unfortunate, we’re pleased that Birmingham City have put their faith in us. We’re confident that we have the right team in place to deliver the outstanding work in a timely manner and ensure that as many fans as possible will be able to support the Club at St. Andrew’s this autumn.”

Work on the lower Tilton and Kop Stands had been due to be complete by September 15, however this was not possible due to the recent circumstances. The project is now expected to be completed before the end of November 2023.

In this new era under American owners, Birmingham City are pushing up the table in the Championship and moving in the right direction off the field with the completion of this stand construction.

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France’s LFP eye return of Ligue 1 to traditional broadcast platforms

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Image Credit: ESPN

The French Professional Football League (LFP) are hoping to again attract a traditional broadcast partner for the 2027/28 campaign, believing there is renewed interest in their domestic football media rights.

Ligue 1 – the top division of professional football in France and home to PSG, Marseille et al. – has been without a traditional broadcast partner since 2025 following a series of failed deals and the exhaustion of their potential partner market.

In place of a traditional broadcast deal the LFP launched its own direct-to-consumer platform, which presently carries all ten Ligue 1 matches each week. The platform has attracted around one million subscribers.

The LFP had hoped a return to a traditional broadcast partner could be on the cards from the 2029/30 season, however given their assessment that market interest has returned, they are expected to bring that tender process forward by two years. 

LFP Media chief executive Oliver Bramly believes the time is right to amend a situation that proved deeply unbecoming for a league as esteemed as Ligue 1 – considered, until recently, an indisputable member of Europe’s ‘Top Five’ leagues. 

‘Before I joined, the idea was to issue a tender for the period covering 2029 -2034,’ Bramly told SportsPro. 

‘But the reaction was that this was too far away. Streamers … [and] all the pay-TV platforms expressed a clear interest in a bid for the period between 2027 and 2032.’

‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime occasion to get a domestic league in a big market like France at an affordable price.’

In March, the LFP presented research that indicated 59% of 9.9million football fans in France watched Ligue 1 via illegal pirate platforms.

Article first appeared in SportsPro. 

Ernie Merrick: ‘There are many clubs that would be fantastic additions to the A-League’

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Ernie Merrick will be forever recognised as a key figure through the A-League’s golden early years. Appointed Melbourne Victory’s foundation manager in 2004 he led the club to not just silverware, but legitimacy and respect in a serious sport city.

A Scottish migrant and PE teacher by trade, Merrick was the youngest of the NSL’s managerial crop when he started with Preston in 1987 in the era of Thomson, Arok & Matic; when he finished with Newcastle in 2020 he was the elder statesman in the A-League age of Postecoglou, Popovic and Arnold.

For the places the game took him and all he achieved – including time as national team manager of Hong Kong – Victory supporters can comfort themselves in the fact that for whatever they feel towards Merrick and his iconic group of players, that feeling is mutual.

‘Yes, definitely,’ Merrick told Soccerscene Unfiltered when asked if managing Victory was the highlight of his career.

‘I think success is [fans] having identification with players, especially. We had Victorian boys playing for Victory.

‘That second year I was determined to have a complete pre-season. Archie Thompson bought me a birthday cake with 200 candles and said “Ernie, we’ve had 200 training sessions. We should celebrate this” – so he was looking forward to a big year, and we won the Grand Final 6-0.’

Nearing 20 years on, Victory and the A-League in general haven’t managed to drive forward as would have been hoped. Unsurprisingly that comes as painful to Merrick, as does the change in landscape regarding his other great passion and contribution in player development. 

‘I’m disappointed, as would most people be, that it’s struggled so badly. To me, there’s something missing,’ said Merrick of the current state of the A-League.

‘Those players we produced at the AIS and VIS went on to be the golden generation. Unless the league is fixed, there’s going to be ongoing problems with the financial status of things.

‘You just cannot earn enough money from selling a youngster, who you might get a million for, who then becomes worth several million in a few years if he does well. Maybe there’s a bit too much of selling players early.’

As someone who gave enduring service across Australia’s two domestic leagues, his voice holds weight in the consideration as to whether it’s time to now blend the, in today’s hyper-corporate landscape.

‘South Melbourne and Preston are two clubs that are perfect for the A-League, I think, down the track. They’ve set up, they’ve endured, they’ve been resilient, they’re playing good football and they’ve got a home base with a home crowd, which is far better than starting a club up from scratch.

‘All those players coming through those squads and the number of supporters they’ve got would be a huge addition. In Sydney too, there’s Marconi – there are so many good clubs around that I think would make a great addition to the A-League.’ 

Merrick also spent thirteen years as head coach at the Victorian Institute of Sport. He feels modern player development is an equation we still haven’t got right, post the closure of the AIS’ football program in 2017.

While many argue the move to club-based academy structures has seen Australia fall more in line with global practice while still producing players of quality, Merrick still feels there is merit in a national high performance program, in addition to club academies.

He was in the process of setting up state academies through the Member Federations during his time as Football Australia’s chief football officer from 2022-25. While the Victoria project was short-lived, academies in Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia continue to run, but it appears the broader expansion of the concept has been abandoned.

‘I think both systems should work [together] equally well. When I started with the FA program clubs thought they would lose players to us, but I didn’t take any of their players. We offered the opportunity of a high-performance program to other youngsters.

‘We could develop players completely; we weren’t restricted to playing 4-3-3 to combine with the way the first team were playing. We provided more of a rounded education, and good players can play in any system.

‘We managed to affect the coaches involved so they were up to date with the latest information on methods of coaching, etc.’

Catch the full chat with Ernie Merrick on Soccerscene Unfiltered: from being two-footed by a 15-year old Kevin Muscat to his enthusiasm for the future of the Socceroos, his memories of Wellington and Newcastle, and plenty more…

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