Wolves staying at Molineux, says director John Gough

With Wolves’ rise into Premier League and Europa League prominence, some fans have wondered whether moving to a new stadium is on the club’s agenda.

But Gough – on the board since 2006 – allayed those fears as he told The Athletic: “The decisions, fundamentally, start with the business case.

“What do the fans want? How big should the stadium be? How much premium seating?

“There is also hospitality and standing now. There aren’t really too many obstacles from a construction point of view, to be truthful.

“The important thing is, from Wolves’ perspective and the city’s, is that it stays (at Molineux), which it will.

“It’s a vital part of the regeneration of Wolverhampton.

“The city council are well behind this, and the university. We’re working together on the future.”

Wolves, last year, unveiled their long-term vision of a 50,000-seater Molineux.

Now, the club are looking at increasing the capacity in a more ‘cautious’ manner as the priority is giving Nuno Espirito Santo’s squad the backing to continue succeeding.

“At the moment, it’s cautious. We want to go as far as we can with the football team,” said Gough.

Wolves have recently submitted a planning application for a new temporary 500-seat stand.

The club are proposing filling in the corner between the Sir Jack Hayward and Steve Bull stands, which would boost the overall capacity above 32,000.

It would see the existing video wall in the south east corner of the ground taken down, with a new one being placed behind an uncovered stand.

The finished product would be similar to the existing Graham Hughes Stand in the south west corner – albeit a bit smaller as that holds around 800.

The new stand would see turnstile block five demolished and replaced with more unmanned automatic turnstiles to ‘improve the entry rate’.

Meanwhile, Gough also spoke about how the board is working now it is down to three people.

Following the departure of Sky Sun for Swiss club Grasshoppers, the board now consists of Gough, John Bowater and chairman Jeff Shi.

“We had three initially, but it isn’t just around the boardroom table,” added Gough, a die-hard Wolves fan who was asked to join the board by the late Sir Jack Hayward.

“There are more than that in terms of meetings – you’ve got the manager on the football side, there’s the financial side, the marketing side. A lot of the work is done outside of board meetings.

“The club is run departmentally on a day by day basis. Whether it’s three or four, I suspect there’s an opening with three.

“I haven’t spoken to Jeff, so I don’t know what his thoughts are since Sky went, but I’m sure he has them.”