Liverpool’s owners Fenway Sports Group say that they are set to finance a new £150m revamp of Anfield and that rebuilding is only being held up by property acquisitions, planning processes and other issues.
Although John Henry refused to speculate on the exact date a planning application will be put in, he said Fenway are making progress. He told the Liverpool Echo:
“We have always said you have to have certainty with regard to the properties because of the height of the stand and all of the issues regarding that.
“So that’s been the biggest issue. We need certainty on that. But we are making progress.”
But Henry insisted that the delay is a good thing, he added:
“ It is actually a positive. That’s why we are doing it.
“The previous regime (Hicks and Gillett) were talking about going out and borrowing an enormous amount of money to build an enormous new facility. That’s not what we’re doing.
“One of their problems was that they weren’t able to get financing. When this happens, financing won’t be the problem.
“Again we just need certainty with regard to these properties and the number of properties that are in question keeps getting reduced.
“The City Council is doing everything they can and that’s all we can ask. Not just the city council, but Your Housing and the regeneration.
“Everyone associated with this – we are all on the same page.”
“We are making good progress.
“There are a lot of different groups working very well together and that’s the key to a big project like this happening, when everybody is on the same page.
“When everybody is on the same page, we move forward.”
Liverpool want to massively redevelop the Main Stand and Anfield Road ends of the ground, giving the stadium a new look and increasing its capacity by 15,000 more sets to around 60,000.
With Uefa’s financial fair play rules coming into effect, the importance of matchday revenues has never been more important. For the 2011/12 season, Liverpool received only €55.9m in matchday revenues compared to Arsenal’s €117.7m and United’s €122m.
Increasing the capacity of Anfield to 60,000 will allow Liverpool to close the financial gap on Arsenal and United
