After putting the scheme on hold in April, the club is expected to announce plans for a 25,000-seat venue.
Portsmouth Football Club is poised to press ahead with plans for a £25m stadium, despite being the collapse of its deal with ITV Digital earlier this year.

The club put the scheme on hold in April after the television firm went bust. At the time, the club estimated that this would take £3m off its bottom line.

Local sources said this week that the Nationwide Division One side was going to put a planning application for the site in the next month.

The stadium is part of a 22.5 ha site that includes the club’s existing ground at Fratton Park, the Fratton Goods Yard and land to the north of the ground formerly owned by British Telecom.

The club is understood to be in talks with a major housebuilder, which has yet to be named, to develop a housing development on part of the site.

The ground will be less substantial than had been planned by chairman Milan Mandaric, who bought the club in 1999. Mandaric, a Croatian millionaire, originally wanted to build a 35,000-seater ground – it is now expected to be closer to 25,000.

One source said the new stadium would be positioned to the north of the existing stadium. “The idea is to turn the pitch 90° and use the land north of the ground. This will allow car parks to be built and take the ground away from the terraced housing, which it is very close to at present.”

The idea is to turn the pitch 90° and use the land north of the ground

Local source

Developer Sellar Property Group, which bought the Fratton Goods Yard in 1999 and has already built a B&Q store and health and fitness centre on the site, is selling five acres of land to the club. Chairman Irvine Sellar said: “Portsmouth exercised their option on the land a couple of months ago and have to complete the purchase by next October.”

Portsmouth FC already owns two and half hectares of land. With Sellar’s land and just under a hectare from BT it will have a little more than five hectares to develop.

A spokesperson for the club refused to discuss the new stadium. He said: “The chairman and chief executive are the only two who know about the plans. They are keeping their cards to their chest – I have no idea when, where or how it’s going to materialise.”

Portsmouth council said it had yet to receive detailed planning permission for the ground but had outline consent.

News of Portsmouth’s plans for the stadium came as other football clubs were reassessing their plans for new or redeveloped grounds because of the sport’s financial problems. Leeds United is expected to scrap plans for a new stadium, and Manchester United is reported to have abandoned extending its ground from 67,000 to 80,000 seats.

Brighton FC said it had changed its plans for the building of a £44m stadium in Falmer. It will now be built in one go, rather than in a four-stage process as originally conceived.