Everton to reduce Goodison capacity for women's team

Everton are drawing up plans about how they will reduce the capacity of Goodison Park when the club's women's team move in, including closing some of the stadium's upper tiers.

The 133-year-old stadium plays host to its final Premier League game on Sunday, when Everton face Southampton, before moving to a new 53,000-capacity arena at Bramley-Moore Dock.

Everton have announced that proposals to demolish Goodison Park have been scrapped and will be used for their women's team from next season.

The women's team average attendance has been 2,062 at their current home at Walton Hall Park and Everton are keen to make Goodison more intimate with its current capacity at 39,572.

The club will now reconfigure Goodison Park, with the Main Stand's top balcony, the Upper Bullens Road Stand and the upper tier of the Howard Kendall Gwladys Street End not in use, but instead covered in Everton's women's team branding.

The club had also offered season ticket holders and seasonal hospitality members the opportunity to buy the seat they have used in the 2024-25 season as a permanent souvenir of Goodison Park after the final men's game has been played.

That plan will go ahead and any seats bought will be replaced by the club in areas that will be occupied by supporters for women's matches.

Everton are then planning to reduce the number of seats in each row where seats have been bought to create extra space, with the current capacity at 39,572.

Under previous owner Farhad Moshiri, the club had announced plans for an £82m post-demolition renovation project on the Goodison site, which was set to include housing, a care home, retail units and a park.

The centre circle, where the ashes of Everton legend Dixie Dean - whose record of 60 league goals in the 1926-27 season still stands - are scattered, was going to be preserved as an area of green space.

But after being taken over by private investment firm the Friedkin Group in December, the club carried out a feasibility study into the possibility of maintaining the stadium as a home for the women's team, and have now opted to continue operating the site.