Bournemouth owner Bill Foley speaks to talkSPORT on the stadium expansion plans, Andoni Iraola, his players and eyes on the Champions League.
Bournemouth are actively working to secure the future of their manager, Andoni Iraola, amid growing interest from the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid.
Iraola has been a revelation at Bournemouth since taking over in the summer of 2023, transforming the team into a competitive Premier League side currently pushing for European qualification. His success has not gone unnoticed.
Bournemouth are also hoping to keep hold of his star players while also expanding the stadium, and has eyes on European qualification.
Listen to the interview Bill Foley had with Alex Crook on talkSPORT by clicking play below…
Iraola’s current contract expires at the end of next season and asked if the club wanted to extend it, Foley said: “Tiago Pinto [sporting director] is talking to his agent and has been talking to Andoni and we are raising the topic.
“I hope that when I’m over in late April or Easter that I will have a chance to sit down with him and just talk to him about what his goals are and his aspirations.
“I know that our aspirations will equal his. He wants to do well, wants to build winning teams and we’re here to support him.
“In terms of the UK, Bournemouth is about as good as it gets in terms of a location. It’s a really great town, the people are wonderful so all that all that is yet to be revealed.
“He’s an excellent coach, a humble man but he is serious and he really is a great coach of our team, and he leads their team, so we’re definitely engaged in all these matters.
“The transfer window won’t be until July but we have a number of targets that we’re interested in to help support our own team.
“In fact, we have a half day meeting next week via Zoom to go through our team and see who we need to bring in how we need to supplement what we already have.
“We are doing really pretty well. We’re not one of these teams that’s under the gun for financial fair play. We’re in pretty good shape and we don’t have debt.
“We’re kind of self-funding ourselves so I am optimistic. We just have we have work to do.
“We have a lot of our players under long-term contracts and most do not have a release clause.
“We never stand in the way of a player in the event they have an opportunity they feel is a better opportunity, but we’re trying to make sure we have a team and an environment that attracts good young players.
“We are opening our new training facility in April and the players are moving in before the end of the month, and the academy will move over probably in late April or early May.
“That’s a big first step, and this is a serious facility. Our players have already seen it, they’ve already toured it, with an indoor pitch and we will have four outdoor pitches.
“They’ll be under the lights so it’s a really state-of-the-art facility. The next step is really our stadium, and we are well underway to having a solution with several stages in mind.
“The first age would be would grow to about 16,000 seats, the next stage would be about 20,000, and the third stage would be to about 24,000 seats and much more hospitality and a much more welcoming environment.
“My job is to really make sure we have an environment that attracts good players and is a situation where those players want to stay and don’t want to move on.
“We can compete salary wise with just about anybody and we need to have the right facilities and the same is true for Andoni because he’s being a priority for us.”
The American billionaire said: “I know I can reach it, maybe not this year, but I know we will be there. I know we’ll be in the top five at sometime in the future.
“I kind of had next year pencilled in as opposed to this year but we’re doing well and we just have to win games now, don’t we?
“If we win games, everyone be happy and it will wonderful for Bournemouth and the fans to have to play in Europe.
“We have never done it before and I just think it would be such an achievement and an accomplishment.”
Stadium expansion plans from 2016…
