Liverpool FC stadium costs rise to £400m

Oct 26 2007 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

THE cost of Liverpool FC’s new stadium on Stanley Park has risen steeply, it was revealed last night.

Tom Hicks, one of the club’s new American owners, has disclosed that the cost of the new stadium – due to open in August, 2011 – will now be at least £400m.

This is £100m more than the previous figure for the project, which is due to go before a special sitting of the city council’s planning committee next month for final approval.

Hicks and fellow American George Gillett took over Liverpool in March and have since revamped the club’s plans for a new stadium.

Hicks, who was attending a global sports industry forum in London ahead of Sunday’s NFL game between the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins, admitted the projected cost had risen to “at least £400m.”

But he added: “I'm so excited about the new stadium because we'll be able to go do things for the fans we’ve never been able to do for them.”

The stadium will have a capacity of 60,000 – 15,000 more than Anfield – when it opens but that could increase to 75,000 in the future.

Hicks said: “Our fans are wonderful and over time we’ll be able to give them the amenities, comfort and ease of getting tickets they’ve never had before.”

He said neither he nor Gillett had any intention of cashing in on any future revenues at Anfield.

“People get involved in sport mainly because they have a passion rather than for the money,” he said. “There are far better investments I could make than buying a football team.”

US-based architects and planners are currently working alongside British design teams and the city council’s planning department on the scheme.

The move comes just weeks after the final slice of public funding for the Stanley Park project was agreed by the board of the Northwest Regional Development Agency. The board agreed to award £9.3m to add to the £9m already given from the European Objective 1 fund.

The cash will go towards refurbishing Stanley Park and building a new community partnership centre alongside the new ground. It is hoped the improvement scheme will give historic Stanley Park its biggest-ever facelift.

Business Editor Bill Gleeson analyses the cost rise

THE rise in the cost of Liverpool FC’s new stadium can hardly be a surprise, even up to £400m. After all, the cost of both the Lon- don Olympics and the new Wembley soared.

The principal reason is the rising cost of steel, driven by strong demand from China. This has been the bane of this project from the start. While Liverpool has edged its way slowly through Britain’s slow grant culture and planning processes, the Chinese have got on with build- ing big public projects such as transport infrastructure of the Olympics, and in so doing, driving up the cost OF the essential raw material of civil engineering.Another obvious reason for the rise in the cost of Liverpool’s new stadium is the fact that it has been redesigned to be bigger. It takes more steel to house a bigger capacity crowd.

While the club’s new owners ambitions for their new stadium appear great, there is one big question that fans ought to be asking: how is £400m going to be repaid? Rest assured, nothing is for free and payback day will come.

So far, there has been a lack of trans- parency in one important aspect of the Americans ownership of Liverpool.

The Gilletts and Hicks families have taken out huge loans to pay for their acquisition and the stadium. These loans come with big interest payments. Where does the money for those interest payments come from and when will it be paid over to the banks?

One other big issue that has emerged to afflict the whole corporate lending market in the past few months is the credit crunch. There is less money around today than there was in spring. The chances are, though, that with their substantial family wealth to back them, the Americans won’t be thought of as a bad credit risk.