Much like the team that calls it home, Wolverhampton Wanderers’s Molineux Stadium is in desperate need of a facelift that had been promised but no longer looks forthcoming.
From the outside, literally, it is plain to see owner Fosun has not prioritised the upkeep of this grand old stadium the club have called home since 1889.
And with Fosun spectacularly failing with its supposed priority – remaining a Premier League side while relying on a risky, cyclical recruitment strategy – then the problems merge into one miserable mess.
“Molineux is one of the many things Wolves fans are disillusioned about with chairman Jeff Shi and Fosun because we look like a club where the owners have lost interest,” Ryan Leister of The Wolves Report podcast tells The i Paper.
“They say they’re spending money elsewhere and that we’re suffering from the self-sustainable model.
“Either way, one of the main responsibilities you have if you’re honoured enough to be a custodian of our football club is to look after the ground.”
Masking over issues with a lick of paint only adds to the symbolism of a struggling club, while for supporters the quality of one stand in particular stands out.
“We almost had to shame the club into painting because the bollards outside the ground, the gates, anything outside in Wolves colours was looking completely neglected,” Leister adds.
“It was really poor. They only started painting the season before last and I’m not even sure they’ve finished.
“As for the Steve Bull Stand, named after our greatest ever goalscorer, it is a disgrace. There’s some metal sheeting over the back of the stand that’s been painted briefly. That is a tired old stand… I know fans who sit in the front row of the top tier and the two adults can barely fit in their seat.”
15 years of promises
In fairness to Fosun, a phrase that is seldom heard around Molineux these days, certain assurances had been made before the takeover in 2016.
In 2010 former chairman Steve Morgan unveiled a four-phase development plan that would address every stand and see Molineux almost double in size.
Phase 1 was completed by 2012, with the renovated Stan Cullis Stand – known as the North Bank – taking the ground from a capacity of 29,303 to 31,700.
But despite proposals to eventually increase Molineux to 50,000 once the other three stands were redeveloped, the plans have ground to a halt.
And what impacted Wolves when the redevelopment was initially sidelined is haunting them again: relegation.
Wolves suffered double relegation in 2012 and 2013, and while the Nuno Espirito Santo-led revolution took them back up the leagues and into Europe, another downward spiral has the club staring at a return to the Championship after eight seasons in the Premier League.
“Molineux has become a symbol of the club itself falling into disrepair for quite a while, of things going downhill,” lifelong Wolves fan Duncan Critchley tells The i Paper.
“It’s a great old stadium with wonderful – and some difficult – memories. Wolves fans are very fond of it, but it does need some redevelopment as a sign of the club moving in the right direction.”
Fosun had announced redevelopment plans in 2019, at the height of the Nuno revival, but worse than the silence since was Shi’s recent acknowledgement an expansion to the proposed 46,000 is no longer necessary.
“We have 32,000 seats at the moment, and I think it’s good enough,” Shi told the Business of Sport podcast in July.
“Maybe 40 [thousand] is the max for the city, but it’s not very urgent. I think the urgent change is we should have more hospitality areas… Similar to what Fulham did with their new stand.
“The goal is not to rebuild the stand or the stadium. It’s more about to tweak, to change, to optimise it.”
Hospitality is hardly the area season-ticket holders would want to see addressed, but that focus is a sign of the times and not restricted to Wolves alone.
However, that does not appear to be on the horizon anyway and is scant consolation for the club’s loyal support, who are crying out for positive change but aren’t holding their breath.
Wolves have been approached for comment by The i Paper.
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