Stoke stadium expansion unlikely

Stoke City fans were officially the loudest in the Premier League

Stoke City are unlikely to increase the capacity at the Britannia Stadium for another two years, despite sell-out home crowds throughout last season.

It had been reported that the club were considering filling in the corner sections with seating to increase the capacity from 27,500 to above 30,000.

But chief executive Tony Scholes told BBC Radio Stoke: "We have feasibility work in place and it depends on those.

"The soonest we would look at doing it would be for it to be ready in 2011."

Scholes added: "We need to see how many seats we can get in there and how much it will cost. We need to be able to justify filling in the corners."

The home sections of the Britannia Stadium were sold out for all but three of Stoke's matches in the Premier League in the 2008/09 season.

"If we're going to build a club that's sustainable in the Premier League, we need to be able to maximise our support and be getting crowds of over 30,000," stated Scholes.

"We need to keep that atmosphere that we had last year, which is significantly helped by the fact it's a sell-out and that people know that they are lucky to have a ticket."