A message from Brian Caldwell.
Dear Season Ticket Holder,
When I arrived at Motherwell FC, one of the most noticeable fixtures around Fir Park was the age of the majority of the seating within the Phil O’Donnell Stand (POD).
Indeed, this matter was raised by supporters to me on many occasions, particularly around when they were renewing their season ticket.
Finding suitable replacement seating had been investigated by the club over the years without a suitable option being found. When the club last played in European competition, the club was sanctioned for the seating being non-compliant and advised that the seating could not be sold for future European competition matches.
The seating was obviously replaced over the summer. I have tried to meet or speak to as many season ticket holders as I can who have raised issues with the new seating to explain the issues the club faced and the limited options available to it.
So that everyone is aware and has a full understanding of the facts and background to replacing the seats, I now feel it is best to email everyone a report outlining the work undertaken over the past year in replacing the seating.
Background
As noted, replacing the seating had been on the club's radar. This desire was further crystallised as the prospect of qualifying to play in European competition increased over the course of last season.
For any UEFA matches, the seats must have a minimum of a 30 cm back as per Article 18.01 below:
‘Seats for spectators must be individual, numbered, firmly fixed in place, robust, made of a shatterproof, non-flammable material, and have a backrest of a minimum height of 30 cm when measured from the surface of the seat.'
The last time Motherwell FC played in UEFA competition, the bucket seats weren’t used because of this, and the wooden seats were used, but the club was sanctioned by UEFA, who noted these seats were also non-compliant and could not be sold for any future fixtures.
This rule also applies for any UEFA international matches at Fir Park; therefore, last season when we hosted two Scotland U21 matches, we couldn’t use any of these seats in the POD.
There were over 3,000 seats within the POD which were either bucket or wooden seats that couldn’t, therefore, be used for any UEFA matches, as neither had the required 30 cm back.
• Wooden Seats – 1,208
• Bucket Seats – 1,839
I would also note that around 90% of the wooden seats are season ticket holders’ seats.
Solutions & Options
Over the course of last season, we approached several seating companies to see if any could provide a suitable solution to replace the POD seats.
Arena Seating, who are probably the biggest seating company in the UK, supplying seating to the majority of UK sports stadia and are the exclusive UK agents for a Spanish manufacturer, noted they had a suitable modern seat which was fully UEFA compliant and which fitted the dimensions of the current POD seating.
This was the only option in the market that would allow for the current seating to be replaced on a like-for-like basis, resulting in no seats being lost in the POD.
Every other option, such as acquiring seats similar to those in the other stands, required taking out 2 rows of seats for every 8 rows. This would have meant taking out well over 500 seats within the POD and resulted in many season ticket holders having to be permanently relocated to another stand.
Arena’s Sales Director was familiar with Fir Park and came up from Barnsley in early April to ensure their proposed solution was feasible. Following the visit, he arranged for 6 sample seats to be sent from Spain for testing, which then arrived in early May.
He then came back up to Fir Park to measure these in situ in order to ensure that they met the Green Guide (Safety of Sports Ground Act), which stipulates that the distance between the seat and the back of the seat in the row in front has a minimum clearway of 305mm (in new build stadiums the minimum is 400mm).
The back row of wooden seats (which backs on to the ‘Motherwell Football Club’ signage) is the tightest but meets the minimum clearway of 305mm. We achieved this by moving the boards back slightly to ensure we met the criteria. In the other rows it varies between 306 and 330 mm (front rows).
The clearway on the previous wooden seats was tight, but we have probably only lost around a few centimetres as you will see from above.
The seats were also thoroughly tested by club staff, and the same seats have been fitted in many stadiums around the world with great success.
We therefore having satisfactorily tested and found through our research that this would be the only seat on the market that could be retro-fitted into the POD stand and meet the UEFA criteria and the Safety of Sports Grounds Act placed an order to replace all of the POD seats on 28 May 2026.
As we asked for the seats to be in our bespoke (claret) colour, there was a lead-in time of 6 weeks, with the majority of the seats arriving on Monday 6th July, and the remaining arriving on Thursday 8th August.
During the intervening time we arranged to remove all the existing wooden seats (as a priority) and installed a new wooden plinth for the seats to be attached to. All wood utilised was new and treated direct from the timber yard, which we then painted in claret.
In a tight timescale and thanks to our dedicated staff, we were able to have the new seating extensively in place for our first European home match.
Summary
The options we had available to us were:
Option 1 – do nothing and don't use the seats in Europe or for any Scotland U21s or UEFA matches. This would have meant relocating over 2,000 season ticket holders to another stand for the HB, HJK and SC Freiburg matches. While not a great option, we could have used the South Stand upper for the HB and HJK matches, but this would not have been available for the SC Freiburg match. This would have meant for the SC Freiburg game that the maximum number of home tickets available would have been reduced by over 3,000, so when you consider the attendance was 8,945 with 8,485 Motherwell fans, this would have been a major issue without the 3,000 POD non-compliant seats.
Option 2 – Re-profile the Main Stand to get a bigger seat in (flip up). This would have required removing / losing 2 rows of seats for every 8 rows. In the wooden seats alone, I did a calculation that we would lose over 500 seats had we taken up this option, which would have meant relocating over 500 season ticket holders permanently to another stand. There would have been no choice on which rows were removed either, as we would have had to take every 7th and 8th row out (most rows have 28 seats).
Option 3 - The only seat on the market that works as a retro fit whilst being UEFA compliant (min. 30 cm back) was the one we went with that also can be installed in compliance with the 'Green Guide' minimum clearway (between the front of the seat and the seat in front) – 305 mm. While spacing is tight and we just meet this in some areas, having 305 mm in the back rows, although some passageways actually reach 330 mm, the spacing has also been checked and passed as safe by our stadium licensing authority.
While it is disappointing our chosen option has not been universally popular, faced with these 3 options, the club still feels Option 3 is the best option available.
Moving forward, the only future solution available to the club would be to re-profile the stand and unfortunately be forced to move a significant number of season ticket holders without affording them any choice in the matter.
We are for obvious reasons keen not to do that to our valued season ticket holders, many of whom have chosen the POD as their stand of choice.
We will, of course, monitor the situation and remain in dialogue throughout the season with our POD season ticket holders and would like to thank you for your continued support.
We hope that this information will help you understand our decision-making process and the restrictions we faced.
Kind Regards,
Brian Caldwell
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