Hatters chairman reveals Luton have approval to rearrange Burnley match if Kenilworth Road isn’t ready
Luton chairman David Wilkinson has revealed that the Hatters have approval to rearrange their opening home game of the Premier League season against Burnley should Kenilworth Road not be ready in time.
Following their promotion to the top flight via the Championship play-off final, the club have been undergoing what chief executive Gary Sweet labelled as an ‘insane’ task of having to completely rebuild the Bobbers Stand at a cost of around £12m in the space of about 14 weeks to meet top flight requirements.
They include a number of new facilities needed for broadcasting top flight fixtures, plus camera positions for VAR, with Town also having to upgrade their floodlights too.
Luton travel to Brighton on the opening day of the campaign, as they are then due to host Vincent Kompany’s Clarets, who won the second tier last term on Saturday, August 19.
After that, Town travel to Chelsea, with their next home game against West Ham United, which has now been moved to Friday, September 1, although could switch again to Sunday, September 3 depending on the date of the Hatters’ yet to be drawn Carabao Cup second round clash.
Speaking to Talk TV about the chances of completion in time to face Burnley, Wilkinson said: “I think we will be ready, we’re ahead of schedule, but that’s as far as I know.
“We have permission if we need to, to rearrange it.
“We got approval for the first game to be away and the possibility of the second if we need to, to be rearranged.”
Like CEO Sweet has already done, Wilkinson also went on to praise the Premier League for their assistance in letting Luton know exactly what needed to be done in getting their stadium up to scratch even before they reached the top division.
He continued: “They’ve been very helpful, the Premier League have been very helpful with the changes we’re making.
“They came in very early, they came in in January as any club who was in danger of being in the play-offs was looked at.
“They come and say ‘well your floodlights aren’t strong enough, and you need this, you need that.’
“There’s all sorts of extra media requirements which we wouldn’t have had in the Championship, and of course, apart from the 50 cameras for the media, you’ve got VAR and all those things that need to be done.
“They come in very early and tell you what you’ve got to do and we had it last year, as we were in the play-offs last year, so we had a clue as to what was going to be required this year.
“It’s been helpful and they’ve been helpful all the way through.
“They bring their various groups to the club and help you organise yourself for the Premier League.”
Explaining just what has been going on to the 118-year-old ground and where the club are with the developments, Wilkinson added: “The boxes have now gone and there is a new stand being built on what is the old stand, the Bobbers stand, which I used to stand on in the early days of going there.
“We’ve had to put up new floodlight pylons because ours weren’t strong enough for media.
“We’re having to put in huge media facilities, we’ve got to have room for 50 fixed camera positions which if you can imagine in Kenilworth Road, is about the whole stadium!
“Of course all the room for the trucks and everything that comes with it, but we’re doing it.”
