Rick Parry: 'Excellent' new LFC stadium will be worth the wait

Jan 9 2008

Rick Parry (200)

RICK PARRY today pledged Liverpool will make a decision on their long awaited new stadium “soon” following a day of “constructive” meetings with architects in New York.

The Reds chief executive joined club owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett for a series of presentations by rival firms HKS and AFL who are both bidding to win the contract to build the club's new stadium on Stanley Park.

Dallas-based HKS produced a revised version of their original plans which were scrapped last month as the project became simply too expensive for the club to proceed with, while Manchester-based AFL came up with their own proposals as the two firms went head to head.

Both companies were asked to produce a full set of proposals with detailed costings, designs, time scales and planning information.

Parry was impressed by what he saw but the club are not yet willing to put their own timescale on when a final decision will be made.

But he fully believes that whichever option is selected it will produce an “excellent result”.

“It was a very full day,” he said. “We had two very detailed and very informative presentations which were very thorough and extremely professional. It has been another big step forward to finding the best possible solution and the whole meeting was very constructive.

“Everyone is reflecting on what they have heard and a clear decision will be taken soon.

“They were both very good in terms of coming closer to the right solution. As ever, when you have a competition you hope it produces outstanding results and I think that is what we have seen today.

“Whichever we do go with it will be an excellent result.”