THE INTERFLORA ARENA

Last updated : 04 January 2005 By editor

MP and city council call on rival clubs to care and share

The Guardian

Intense rivalry between Liverpool and Everton appears to be the main stumbling block to a scheme for the two Premiership clubs to share a new purpose-built stadium in the city. A local MP and the leader of the city council have expressed frustration at the inability of the two clubs to reach agreement, saying that it is "make your mind up time" after 18 months of talks.

Liverpool insist that their planned new Stanley Park stadium is a single-club option and that Everton is unlikely to find the £60m-plus that would make all parties reconsider the ground-sharing project. The 60,000-seat arena will cost £110m to build, almost £30m more than the initial budget.

Talks began last month between Everton and the city council about improving Goodison Park. Everton's earlier efforts to build a 55,000-seat stadium collapsed for lack of funding.

The clubs are still fulfilling the sports minister Richard Caborn's request to have one final attempt to make a ground-share scheme work, but the Everton chairman, Bill Kenwright, has said he will resign rather than be Liverpool's tenant.

Peter Kilfoyle, the Labour MP for Walton, where Liverpool FC and Everton have their stadiums, is frustrated by the delay.

Shortly before Christmas he was at a meeting with representatives of the two clubs, the Northwest Development Agency and Liverpool city council.

"It is difficult," he said, "because there needs to be agreement between the clubs before it can proceed.Realistically, in my view, it comes down to money. It appears that one club [Liverpool] has the money and the other [Everton] does not. It is as simple as that.”

"There has been a failure of this project in the city generally. At the end of the day, no club wants to share but there is an argument about it making sense commercially. What is the point of duplicating facilities 400 yards away when the extra money released could be spent on players? But when talking about football this seems to go out of the window."

Mike Storey, the leader of Liverpool city council, echoed his views. He said: "It seems ludicrous for two clubs within spitting distance of each other to have separate grounds." Great mainland European clubs such as Inter and AC in Milan, and Roma and Lazio in Rome managed to share a stadium, he pointed out.