Owing to the increasingly poor condition of Windsor Park,[11][12] various proposals for its replacement were mooted, including the idea of a multi-purpose stadium hosting football, rugby union and Gaelic games on the site of the former Maze prison, or a national stadium built as part of a major leisure development at Sydenham in east Belfast.

[13] The plans for the multi-purpose stadium at the Maze site was strongly protested by essentially all the Northern Ireland match-going supporters.

[citation needed] In September 2009, the Irish Football Association (IFA) announced that its preferred option was to remain at a redeveloped Windsor Park.

The plan would see Windsor Park become an 18,000 all-seater stadium with a series of phased works originally intended to begin in the summer of 2013.

[18] Two months later however, an application for leave for judicial review of the government funding was lodged by Crusaders, who claimed that it was against European Union competition laws and also a form of state aid to Linfield.

In a hearing that took place on 22 May 2013, Crusaders' request was granted, after the judge ruled that they had presented an arguable case that the redevelopment could be classified as state aid towards Linfield.

[20] In September 2013, sports minister Carál Ní Chuilín said that she was still committed to making sure the redevelopment went ahead as scheduled, after previously stating that she would not sign off on the funding until the IFA sorted out the "governance issues" surrounding David Martin's return to the role of deputy president.

[21] In December 2013, three months after the work was originally scheduled to begin, the redevelopment was finally given the green light, with the sports minister signing off on £31 million of funding to complete the project.