Stanley Park
LIVERPOOL FC face losing the right to build their new stadium on Stanley Park, unless the club “sorts itself out”, city council leader Warren Bradley warned last night.
The shock threat comes as the Daily Post can also reveal that the year delay to the £350m scheme announced yesterday by the club is actually likely to be considerably longer.
Angry fans’ groups hit out at co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks who took over the club 18 months ago promising work would start on a new stadium within 60 days. The club blamed the credit crunch for the decision and now claims that the new stadium will be open in time for the 2012/13 season.
Basic preparatory works for the new Stanley Park ground started some weeks ago, but the council and LFC are yet to sign an agreed 999-year lease on the park.
“I would not want the council to sign the lease until such a time as we know that Liverpool FC can deliver it 150%,” said Cllr Bradley last night.
“I have always had my reservations about their ability to raise the funds.
“I just wish they would sort themselves out, the Anfield and Breckfield areas have waited too long for this.”
The Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) is also to demand a meeting with Kop Holdings, the Gillett and Hicks company which owns LFC, within two weeks over £9m the agency had previously agreed to give to the club.
The Daily Post understands the American co-owners “spoke to any bank that would listen” to raise the loan for the stadium but were turned away because they refused to put up 25% of the cost themselves, around £100m.
The £350m the Americans borrowed when they re-financed the debt taken out when they bought LFC is also “looming large in their minds” as the deal expires in January and can only be extended for an additional six months, if banks Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia agree.
One of the main drivers behind a new stadium is to increase Liverpool FC’s revenues to help the club better compete on the pitch.
