Portsmouth chief details Fratton Park summer improvement plans - and why Callum Lang sale isn't funding them

Andy Cullen believes Pompey’s £1m-plus pitch project will be their only capital expenditure this summer.

And the Blues’ chief executive is adamant the latest scheduled stadium work is not being funded by last month’s Callum Lang transfer windfall.

Following the final day of the Championship season against Birmingham (May 2), the existing soil-based pitch will be ripped up and relaid with a hybrid version.

It will improve the playing surface, as well as allow Pompey Women to permanently relocate to Fratton Park, although owners Tornante have decided against installing undersoil heating on this occasion.

And with the work having been given the green light in the autumn, Cullen insists it isn’t being bankrolled by Lang’s £2.1m sale to Preston on deadline day.

‘It is a new investment we must make’

Pompey’s chief executive told The News: ‘We are getting a new hybrid pitch down. The current pitch is worn out, it has gone beyond its shelf-life, so it is a new investment we must make this year.

‘At the moment it is a soil-based pitch and operates on a carpet. The carpet underneath is slowly wearing out. Although the surface looks pretty good, underneath the root structure is compromised.

‘So this provides a whole new undersoil surface with new drainage, new pipe systems, new structure, and a really, really good pitch which will last us over the next few years.

‘The cost is a seven-figure sum, we have to budget for that. It will be the significant capital expenditure project for next year.

‘The decision to do the pitch was made in the autumn of this season, long before the sale of Callum Lang. We had been planning for that pitch well before we received the initial offer for Callum, so that hasn’t been impacted.

‘Callum Lang bears no relation to the pitch - we are trying to develop a player trading model at this football club.

‘In the last few years, we’ve had TV gantries, significant changes to the training ground, new concourses, the Victory Lounge and other things. The usual maintenance projects, which we need to do in terms of health and safety - which, by the way, aren’t insignificant in terms of cost - will continue as normal.

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‘However, the pitch will probably exclusively be the only major project which will operate over the summer outside of the works we have to do to ensure the stadium is safe.’

Undersoil heating ‘roughly £700,000 extra’

Cullen previously told The Tony Goodall Fans’ Conference in February that undersoil heating would ‘cost roughly £700,000 extra’.

January’s postponement against Ipswich was the first Fratton Park match to suffer from a frozen pitch cancellation since the scheduled visit of Hull in February 2012.

Subsequently, the rearranged match last month was also postponed, on that occasion for a waterlogged pitch. The sides will now meet on Tuesday, April 14.

And, considering it is currently not compulsory to have an undersoil pitch in the Championship, Cullen has stressed it isn’t on the agenda ‘this summer’.

He added: ‘Undersoil heating is not on the agenda for this summer.

‘At the moment, that is an additional extra expense. I get requests from every single department in terms of the groundsman wanting pitches and undersoil heating, the commercial team wanting more things they can put into the stadium to grow the business, Rich needs lots more stuff he wants to put into the training ground. So we’re just trying to balance everything in a way and prioritise.

‘The number one priority is to get that pitch done first and then the undersoil heating will follow in due course.

‘Since 2012, there has only been one game Pompey have lost to frost. We will continue to have the other methods of pitch protection in terms of cold weather, plus will be in a really good position in terms of the pitch going forward.

‘Premier League require it, at the current time Championship rules are as such that there’s no requirement for undersoil heating, whether that changes in the future remains to be seen.

‘As anything major which comes in, whether it be safe standing or whether a club gets promoted from League One to the Championship and you have to move from standing terraces to all seater, there’s a period of time where you will be given grace to get those improvements made.’

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