Click here to watch The Business of Football debate with Robert Elstone
EVERTON chief executive Robert Elstone has insisted that the economic downturn would not prevent the football club raising the money needed to pay for its new stadium at Kirkby.
Speaking during yesterday’s Liverpool Daily Post’s online television programme, The Business of Football, Mr Elstone said the £78m that Everton had to find would come from a variety of sponsorship and naming rights deals, as well as the proceeds from the sale of the club’s current home at Goodison Park and now disused training ground in West Derby.
Mr Elstone added that, 12 months ago, he felt it would be “challenging” to build the new ground within the original £130m budget, but current economic conditions had made construction costs cheaper, and that budget was now a realistic prospect.
Mr Elstone was part of a studio panel that also included Professor Tom Cannon, a football finance expert based at the University of Liverpool, and Daily Post sports editor John Thompson. The programme, recorded at the Daily Post’s new TV studio, in Old Hall Street, was hosted by the paper’s business editor, Bill Gleeson.
Mr Elstone and the rest of the panel were answering questions posed by football fans on a live blog yesterday morning.
On the issue of whether Everton would be able to raise funds from a naming rights deal, Prof Cannon said: “At the moment, football is still high profile. Naming rights will be resolved.”
