The delay will be a blow to Barr Construction who were named as preferred bidder by the club last year.

Work was due to get underway early this year on the 21,000-seater stadium but has now been put back 12 months and the new ground will not now be ready until the summer of 2014.

The delay is due to problems over ownership of the land.

Aberdeen will now play at their historic Pittodrie home for another two seasons.

The Club’s Chief Executive Duncan Fraser commented. “From the outset, when we announced the original timetable, we did state it was an extremely robust and ambitious timescale and that has proved to be exactly the case.

“The issue of land assembly in the locality of the site was always going to be one of the major challenges and, while we remain confident of a positive outcome, the process has taken longer than we had originally hoped.

“While moving during the course of a season was certainly an option, that course of action was ruled out as the most appropriate time for such a move would be in the close season.

“In addition, there is no doubt everybody connected with AFC was extremely disappointed with the season just finished and the stadium being put back by twelve months will allow the number one focus next season to be in ensuring on the field success.

“While the delay is disappointing, such is the scale of the project, it is imperative to ensure we are not giving ourselves unrealistic deadlines to work towards and we can now carry on with planning for a further two full seasons at Pittodrie.”