Hull City will have a new MKM Stadium pitch next season but could it also have standing for the first time?

One of the options being considered is having a standing area for the first time at the 22-year-old ground.

The huge disparity in revenues in the Premier League and the Football League Hull are currently in make planning for the future more difficult but whether they win promotion via the Championship play-offs or not this season, vice-chairman Tan Kesler is determined that the Tigers will not stand still.

Wider, more ambitious plans to build a new training complex next to the site of the 25,000-seater stadium they share with rugby league side Hull FC are being bounced around with the council, who own the ground, but there will be some more minor improvement work done in the short-term.

Even though it is only seven years since Hull last played in the Premier League, its ever-rising standards means some upgrades will be necessary should Hull win the play-offs they are hoping to qualify for in the last nine games of the season.

But there is also a hunger from Kesler, led by his boss, chairman Acun Ilicali, to improve the matchday experience regardless. And with playing attractive football part of the vision, a truer playing surface is a must.

"Are we like Luton (who had to build an entire temporary stand to accommodate many of the new demands of antiquated Kenilworth Road this season)? No, but we have to change the experience and the interior," said Kesler from Hull's mid-season training camp in Antalya, Turkey.

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"The pitch is going to be renewed regardless.

"Thank God our lights are Premier League standard but we would like to improve the seating with better seats, more exclusive areas, maybe safe standing, I don't know. We're thinking about these things.

"Infrastructure-wise, we know what we need to do if we go into the Premier League. There are some issues but it's not like we have to completely renovate everything.

"We take big pride in how we play, so we have to create the platform for that and the pitch is going to be renewed.

"There are bits and pieces we would like to invest in to give our fans a better experience but this summer we will go ahead with that."

Standing at top-level English football matches was banned in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster but rail seating – so called “safe standing” – has been allowed on a trial basis since 2022-23, with Leeds United’s Elland Road one of the grounds to have a section handed over to it.

On the wider redevelopment, which includes discussions about extending the 30-year lease on the ground (Hull FC's has only three years to run), Kesler said: "Plans have been exchanged. We've been consistently exchanging ideas and opinions and the council has been very supportive.

"At this point we don't want to come out in public because we have applied our project to the city council and they received it very well and we're just progressing and understanding where we are, how much land we need and the council has to go back to the Showmen's Guild and ask their approach, how they can manoeuvre things.

"It's moving faster than it was before."

Kesler says Ilicali, who bought the club in January 2022, sees it as his duty to improve the infrastucture for what he hopes is the far-off day when he is no longer its owner – but not at the short-term cost of developing the squad.

"If we don't get promoted we will still improve the club, we always promised that, but the more we spend money and focus on improving the squad, the less we can spend on infrastructure so the more financially stable the club is, the better," said Kesler.

"It's our legacy, the chairman's legacy, that the stadium and the development project around it is something we owe to the public and once we finish it, everybody will be proud of it and crazy about it.

"As flagholders of our club, this is the least we can do but it all depends on on-pitch success and how much we have to invest on the pitch."

Spending on infrastructure is not counted towards clubs’ financial fair play regulations, something English clubs are having to be increasingly wary of.