New Liverpool Stadium Is Likely To Be Off

Liverpool FC stadium crisis: Well it finally comes down to the crunch

Aug 30 2008 by Tony Barrett, Liverpool Echo

INFLUENTIAL thinker Carl Jung is well known in these parts for once describing Liverpool as “the pool of life”, a quote which would later become a PR man’s dream.

There is another quotation from the Swiss physician which resonates just as greatly when discussing the current goings on at the football club which bears this city’s name.

According to Jung “The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing,” and with Liverpool’s stadium plans having been delayed yet again it is easy to build a case for this particular reflection to be applied to Messrs Hicks and Gillett.

It is now a mind boggling 571 days since George Gillett told Liverpool’s fans that a spade would go into Stanley Park within 60 days of he and his fellow American taking over the club in February 2007.

There have been workmen on site doing “preparatory work” but the only digging that has been done was performed by members of fans group the Spirit of Shankly who took their own spades along to the Victorian park in April in protest at the lack of progress.

Since then, Tom Hicks and his inner circle have constantly rejected suggestions that he and his co-owner lacked the necessary finance to go ahead with the construction of a stadium which will cost in excess of £300m.

Hicks has also been at pains to point out that the stadium dream would not be derailed by the credit crunch even though the cost of borrowing and the price of steel have both become much more prohibitive during the current economic downturn.

Even when his Dallas Glorypark went belly up because of the crunch four months ago, Hicks still stuck to his guns telling anyone who dared ask questions about what the economic cycle would mean to the Stanley Park plans that it made no difference whatsoever.

You didn’t need a degree in economics or pure mathematics to realise that this just didn’t add up and yesterday the worst fears of Liverpool’s fans were confirmed when Liverpool released a statement confirming that building work would be delayed after all.

“Global market conditions”, the very same ones which Hicks was adamant would not curtail work, were mentioned of course as he tried to portray himself as the innocent victim of a seemingly unstoppable international downturn.

Texan businessmen have a reputation for talking tough and cutting through the bull****, so surely Tom won’t mind the fact that SOS have cut to the chase and said what everyone else is thinking, namely that the two current owners of Liverpool FC do not have either the dough or the ability to run one of the world’s greatest clubs.

Like many other people close to what is going on at Anfield, SOS had been expecting yesterday’s announcement for some time.

The decision to delay the stadium was not taken this week, rumours first began circulating that this would happen several weeks ago when a key member of the design team was recalled to the US.

Hicks is currently taking PR advice from London based Freud Communications in another clear sign that there are currently two clubs at Liverpool – one at Anfield and Melwood and one in the US which uses satellite companies for its own ends.

The best bit of advice that Hicks could currently be given is that unless he turned up at the Shankly Gates with a fistful of dollars to fund the proposed new stadium and to provide Rafa Benitez with his first choice signings then there is virtually no chance of winning over the Liverpool fans.

Promises have been made and promises have been broken and football fans by their very nature have the longest of memories. So it is highly unlikely that there is any way that the Liverpool supporters will alter their feelings about the duo.

Hicks and Gillett are currently the only people in the world who could claim to be less popular on the Kop than Gary Neville and that is an incredible achievement after just 18 months in control.

Perhaps the only way they could boost their popularity would be to walk away before they can do any more damage. Anything else will only add to the current incessant pain that everyone who holds Liverpool Football Club dear is currently feeling.

tonybarrett@liverpoolecho.co.uk