Everton have confirmed the first competitive football fixtures at Everton Stadium will take place at the start of the 2025/26 season.
The confirmation means that the 2024/25 season will be the final campaign at our historic Goodison Park home.
Blog from Everton FC Interim CEO, Colin Chong
“I recently had the pleasure of attending a meeting with our Fan Advisory Board. The meetings are always honest and frank, providing both the fans and the Club an opportunity to discuss key matters impacting supporters.
While the committee summary of that meeting is available for supporters to read online, I wanted to give all Evertonians an explanation and some background on one of the key Club decisions we confirmed directly with the FAB.
This was the confirmation that the first competitive football fixtures for our senior men’s side will take place at our new stadium at the start of the 2025/26 season.
Firstly, and to be absolutely clear, our decision to not move in mid-season is not because of a construction delay. It is a Club decision driven by a combination of commercial insight, a comprehensive review of the logistics required, an analysis of the potential impact upon our football operations and, importantly, fan feedback sourced as part of our recent stadium migration survey, which was completed by almost 10,000 Evertonians.
Everton Stadium remains firmly on track, as scheduled, to be completed in the final weeks of 2024.
We will need to conduct test events at our new home, which will allow us to stress-test the stadium in a number of different ways in order to obtain our Safety Certificate. It will also give Evertonians a chance to see and sample the new facilities.
Some of our test events will involve crowds of varying capacities, while others will need to be operationally focused and only involve our own staff.
We will, of course, provide more details on how Evertonians can get involved and register for those events in due course.
All of this does mean that next season, 2024/25, is scheduled to be our last at Goodison Park. By the time we close the gates for the final time, Goodison will have been our home for nearly 134 years, with many supporters telling us very clearly about their desire to make sure the Grand Old Lady gets a fitting send-off.
For a while now, the Club has been looking at a series of events, tours and celebrations that will allow us all to pay tribute to one of the world’s most iconic and well-known stadiums.
Now we know the farewell to Goodison will be a year-long celebration, we can start to firm up those plans and we will begin to reveal more details around what is planned and how fans can get involved later this season.
In the meantime, our Fan Centre, Marketing and Communications teams are finalising our Season Ticket campaign for our final season at Goodison Park.
In the coming weeks we will share information on how you can secure your seat and renew for the final time, in what will be an emotional and historic season. That also means that, once the renewal process for 2024/25 is complete, attention will begin to turn to the plans for migration into our new stadium for the 2025/26 season. With this at the forefront of our minds, we will be working with fan groups in 2024 to test our new stadium pricing models and what an effective and fair migration process will look like.
The migration of fans from Goodison to Everton Stadium will, naturally, be a big task – and one our Insight and Fan Centre teams are relishing. A great deal of information has already been sourced from the stadium-surveys already conducted, as well as feedback from our regular dialogue with fan groups. The support and feedback we have received from supporters has been incredible and I would like to thank everyone who has given up their time and provided us with vital insight, be it through Club surveys or direct conversations with us.
Your input will help us prioritise, preserve and harness the unique atmosphere of Goodison Park as we move into our new home. It will ensure fairness in the prioritisation of Season Ticket purchasing and allow us to communicate a process that will be clearly defined and transparent for all Evertonians.
Also, for the sake of clarity and to respond to a question that was raised in a recent fan meeting, it is the case that every 2024/25 Season Ticket Member will have the opportunity to secure a Season Ticket for the first season at Everton Stadium.
For Evertonians who don’t have a Season Ticket, the process for Official Members on the waiting list will also be shared at the appropriate time as we continue the countdown to our first stadium move since 1892.
Finally, I just want to let you know that in the new year we will be releasing information and the opportunity to secure seasonal memberships for our final phase of ‘ALL’ – our bars, restaurants and experiences at the new stadium. Our new home is setting an incredible benchmark for how our industry views traditional ‘hospitality’, with an incredibly wide variety of social spaces that allow each fan the chance to enjoy a unique matchday.
Sales have exceeded all expectations, with the first three phases selling out well ahead of schedule.
We fully expect our final phase, revolving around pubs and bars, to prove even more popular, so please do register your interest early HERE.
Our Club is special because of our fans. It is the fans that make Goodison such an iconic auditorium for football – and it will be the fans that elevate the truly beautiful stadium that has risen on the banks of the Mersey into our new fortress, and one of the finest sporting venues on the planet.”