Liverpool's unbuilt Stanley Park stadium cost the club a staggering £50 million
Liverpool's pursuit of a futuristic arena on Stanley Park cost them £50 million, the club's accounts have revealed.
A time to forget: George Gillett and Tom Hicks' Liverpool tenure was hugely unsuccessful Photo: PA
12:56AM BST 04 May 2012
Former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett scrapped an earlier stadium design in favour of a more ambitious plan from Dallas-based architects HKS.
On taking control of the club, the Fenway Sports Group was forced to abandon that scheme and revert to the original plan.
Accounts published on Friday will show a loss of £49.6 million associated with Liverpool's stadium costs, £35 million of which is a consequence of writing off the Hicks scheme.
As Telegraph Sport revealed in January, FSG has now dusted down the earlier design by Manchester-based architects AFL, first released in 2001, but the crippling cost of Hicks' folly is still being felt.
Liverpool say without those expenses, this year's club accounts would show the club is breaking even, with debts reduced by over £200 million to around £38 million.
Interest payments, which rose to £17 million due to severe penalties for failure to repay loans under Hicks and Gillett, have now decreased to £3 million a year.
FSG bought Liverpool with a desire to reduce wasteful expenditure and increase revenue. In fact, during the first season they spent £131 million on new players, although £9 million was also received through player sales.
The club's wage bill also rose by £10 million, but again the shifting of high-earning deadwood, Philipp Degen, Emiliano Insua and Milan Jovanovic, left by previous managers has since reduced those expenses.
Liverpool also had to pay out £8.4 million in 'termination payments' to former staff, including former manager and new England coach Roy Hodgson. He received £7 million when he was dismissed after six months at Anfield.
The lack of Champions League football is costing Liverpool around £20 million a season due to dips in media revenue and matchday attendances.
Managing director Ian Ayre pinned the latest figures entirely on the former regime led by former owner Hicks. "A big part of that cost was on a particular stadium design that the previous owners were keen to develop and that's a whole mix of design costs, planning costs, legal costs, some other administrative costs, and they escalated quickly," said Ayre.
"What's important is that fans can take some comfort in the fact that moving forward that certainly isn't the case. We have a different design which was the original design, which we have planning permission for and in terms of the design that's largely done, so there's no additional cost to go to there.
"In terms of other areas that we're looking at, at Anfield, again we've been very prudent and there has been no view the cost will escalate anywhere near that again."
Alongside Liverpool's finance director Philip Nash, also still at Anfield, Ayre was an executive member of the Hicks and Gillett regime having been appointed by the American pair to the role of commercial director in 2007. That has not prevented him distancing himself from that tainted era and thriving under the current owners.
His role has been elevated since being appointed managing director last season as reward for his success in increasing Liverpool's commercial revenues.
They rose again by 25 per cent to £77.4 million in 2011, a figure which does not take into account an imminent £25 million a year kit sponsorship deal with Warrior Sports, a record for a Premier League club.
"There is still a lot to do on the commercial side," said Ayre. "They are good figures and it is good growth and we'll grow again this year. But in the five years I've been here, I've always said we were a long, long way behind. And I still feel like we're playing a bit of catch-up.
"We still have a long way to go particularly internationally, but it's getting there."
Meanwhile, Stewart Downing says last summer's Liverpool signings do not deserve to be branded the scapegoats for the club's poor league performance.
His £20 million purchase from Aston Villa was part of the investment intended to bring Champions League football.
Instead, Liverpool are in danger of dropping to ninth before their next Premier League game, a fact which has already cost Damien Comolli his job.
As Downing prepares to face Chelsea at Wembley, he says blaming himself, Jordan Henderson and Andy Carroll for the collective failure of the team is unfair.
"It's easy to look and think just because it's not gone well in the league it's the new players. But that happens at every club," said Downing.
"There are more than four or five players in a squad and we have all not done it, not just the new ones. It's as a team. Sometimes the new ones haven't played and we have lost games, it's just a building process, it takes time, it's not overnight..
"You're expected to come in and set the world alight but sometimes it doesn't happen."
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