Liverpool Football Club is to expand its Main Stand at Anfield Stadium.

Carillion is expected to start construction early next year and be it will be completed during the 2016-17 season. The expansion will take the Main Stand capacity to over 20,000 and overall Anfield capacity to around 54,000.

Football matches will continue to be played at Anfield during the construction works.

Tom Werner, Liverpool chairman, said: "Since Fenway Sports Group took ownership of the club, we were committed to explore in depth all options for the future of Anfield Stadium. We listened to fans, the community, partners, the Supporters' Committee and key stakeholders involved in the club.

"It was just over two years ago that we said our preference was to stay at Anfield and here we are today announcing that the expansion is going ahead. We have made more progress in the past two years than in the last decade.

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"Having experience of expanding Fenway Park and being through a similar and very successful project for the Red Sox, everyone at FSG is extremely proud and excited to be part of expanding Anfield Stadium."

The expanded Main Stand, which will become one of the largest all-seater stands in Europe's top divisions, will comprise three tiers, with the existing lower tier re-profiled to accommodate a widened player tunnel, new team benches, media platform and wheelchair viewing positions.

The scheme will also include a two-storey podium which will become the new home for the Hillsborough Memorial, while the iconic Shankly Gates will also be repositioned as part of the new designs.

Kathy Cowell, chair of Your Housing Group, said: "The Anfield Project has always been about wholesale regeneration, involving not just a redeveloped stadium but new homes, new businesses and new employment opportunities that benefit the local community.

"The new homes and the job opportunities are already being delivered and the start of work on the stadium signals the realisation of the next stage of the partners' ambition to turn a vision into a reality for the people of Anfield."

(CD/JP)