posted Dec 18, 2007

A ground share would hardly be fair, the reds would need to use of it a lot more than Everton .Liverpool have many more commitments from European Cup, and other advanced stage cup competitions.

:@)

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

Another good week for the dippers.....

Rafa loses his final jigsaw piece and now the money has run out for the world's best stadium.

the Glazers mark 2 will be making more waves soon

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

Liverpool have too many historical dellusions of gradeur to share a ground, despite it being the best option all round! Sorry, but that's the way it is.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

Historical delusions of grandeur?

No club in England is more successful in the top flight or European competitions.

18 leagues and 5 European cups. Though admittedly most were won in a different age...

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

One stadium with two clubs is easy if both sides would give a little.

Lets start with the contentious points first.

1) Stadium name. Why not call it the Merseyside Arena?

2) Seat colours. It is easy enough to have blue seats at one end and red at the "kop" end. Have a neutral colour for the rest. Then when players or managers are interviewed in the ground the Everton players can stand with their backs to their end and the Liverpool ones with their back to the kop.

3) Income split. Surely fixed costs can be split 50 / 50 and then both income and expenditure that is game specific can be allocated to the club actually playing.

4) The ground could have two megastores one for each club within their end of the ground.

Surely this isn't too difficult or do both club fans want to see huge ticket price rises to pay for two grounds. The phrase cutting your nose off to spite your own face comes to mind.

Twenty years ago after Hillsborough both sets of fans were able to put their differences aside at that years FA Cup final. Let's all be adults and act sensibly not out of dogma.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

The american owners are only here for one thing - invest and resell using leverage.

They will only do enough to raise the value of the club or wait for another buyer to pay over the top and net them a healthy return on investment.

This is exactly the same thing Glazer is doing at United.

The Americans owners are now suffering from the financial crisis back home. Who knows how much they've lost in their own portfolio? So to expect them to pour more money into LFC is unrealistic.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

Ground sharing works abroad as the stadiums are owned by the state, not the club. This is evident when yoiu visit these stadiums, as they are quite oftem dumps i.e. San Siro.
Though San Siro looks good on telly, its run down, dirty and has very poor facilities.

Not what you expect from a top Prem side!

The other down side is the fans don't feel any ownership of the stadium and as such don't make as much effort in keeping the stadium nice.

It could work over here, but don't think anyone would go for it!

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

Take an S out of the above headline and it sums it up.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

total cost of the build was £70-£80m for a 70,000 seater stadium due to be opened in 2004/5 season. now that price has gone up to £700m in a few reports. £70m seems like nothing now and rafa nearly spent that anyway this summer. I would rather be in a £70m debt from the stadium rather than a £700m one. Moores could of got a loan to pay for that stadium but we dragged our heals.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Dec 18, 2007

This is an intelligent move by Hicks and Gillet. The American economy which they would have borrowed the money from faces a very turbulent 2 or 3 years and they are re-assesing the situation before comitting LFC to a tremendous amount of debt which potentially could increase to a flat rate of 20% in the very near future. If you want to work out an APR then try doubling this figure!!
If I were a Man U fan of which there always appears to be many on the LFC boards I would be very worried. Your owners have already committed your club to this tremendous amount of debt and considering they are only currently making minimum payments on this loan of over £500m sterling then I would be very concerned when the interest rate increases and the creditors who by the way have heavily invested in the US sub prime mortgage industry start wanting to recall the debt.
I can smell another Leeds Utd.

add comment | complain about this comment