Over the past decade, Liverpool have increased the Anfield capacity to not only improve the aesthetics of the stadium but also to meet the demand for tickets. The club's season ticket waiting list is so long that they haven't even been letting people join it for more than five years.
The first stage of the redevelopment was to add two tiers to the top of the Main Stand. This increased the capacity from 45,362 to 54,167 and was completed in 2016.
The next, and latest stage of the Anfield capacity increase was to renovate the Anfield Road Stand. This increased the capacity by a further 7,000 seats with 5,200 used for general admission tickets and around 1,800 used for hospitality.
The £80m redevelopment, which was taken over by Rayner Rowen Group, upgraded the Anfield capacity from 54,000 to more than 61,000. This significant improvement was achieved by the addition of the upper tier to the Anfield Road Stand.
The Anfield Road Stand expansion work rumbled on for longer than first anticipated, however, it was finally completed in early 2024.
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Anfield new capacity
Ahead of the 2024/25 Premier League season, Liverpool announced that Anfield will have an expanded capacity from the end of the last campaign.
In April 2024, 60,090 supporters attended Liverpool's 1-0 home defeat against Crystal Palace, which was the highest attendance for a league match at the famous stadium. This has now been surpassed by the attendance for the Nottingham Forest game at the start of the 2024/25 season, which saw 60,344 fans at Anfield.
For this season, the capacity is 61,276, which is slightly lower than Anfield's all-time record attendance. This was achieved during an FA Cup game against Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1952, when 61,905 fans were inside the ground.
Has the Anfield expansion had an impact on the atmosphere?
Since the expansion work first started eight years ago, match-going Liverpool fans have complained about how the atmosphere inside the stadium has dwindled. The addition of more corporate areas is said to have made Anfield more sanitised which is having a detrimental impact on what made the ground famous in the first place.
The latest expansion to the Anfield Road Stand has only made these complaints louder with some fans claiming that fans in the newly expanded area aren't interested in helping to generate the famous Anfield atmosphere.
Much talk of lack of atmosphere at Anfield yesterday. Is the expansion with main focus on hospitality suites and commercialisation to blame for the lack of atmosphere?. Some say the atmosphere was equally flat vs. Brentford??
— theKop1952 (@theKop1952) September 15, 2024
Anfield capacity: Where does it rank among PL grounds?
With Anfield now boasting a capacity north of 61,000, where does it sit in the list of Premier League stadiums in terms of capacity?
- Manchester United – 75,653
- West Ham – 62,500
- Tottenham – 62,062
- Liverpool – 61,276
- Arsenal – 60,704
- Manchester City – 55,097
- Newcastle – 52,338
- Aston Villa – 42,660
- Chelsea – 41,798
- Everton – 39,571
- Southampton – 32,384
- Leicester City – 32,259
- Wolves – 31,700
- Brighton – 30,750
- Nottingham Forest – 30,576
- Ipswich Town – 30,014
- Crystal Palace – 26,074
- Fulham – 25,678
- Brentford – 17,250
- Bournemouth – 11,464