Saturday 19 September 2009

Hicks says stadium will be built once the global recession eases

Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks insists Liverpool's planned new stadium will be built once the global financial market settle down. The Reds new stadium has stalled since the American owners declared "The shovel needs to be in the ground in the next 60 days," in Feb 2007, but Hicks still claims the stadium is still in his plans:

"When we get to the point where the global market settles down and we bring pieces together to finance the stadium (then we can again start building)," said Hicks on Sky Sports.

"It's certainly not anything we have changed our mind on. I don't know about the dates because of the global financial markets, but I know the markets will settle down and get better.

"I'm an optimist. I've been through lots of cycles, although none as severe as this in my lifetime. It's a dynamic world."

He continued: "We have spent a lot of money and we have a fully designed stadium. We have every permit in place, all the city councils' approvals, the judicial reviews on a national basis - everything is done.

"That's a great asset to have just to wait for the markets to open up and be able to do anything. Certainly it will happen."

"We think that the stadium is one of the biggest opportunities for Liverpool to be truly one of the top clubs in the world," he said.

"Liverpool was a famous club around many parts of the world before Manchester United became strong in the last 20 years, and that's a heritage we want to build on and try to get to be as strong as possible. The club's in the best shape in many, many years.

"Rafa (Benitez) has put together an outstanding group of players over the last two or three years. We can always have more, but I think we're doing very well and I think we will have great success on the pitch this year.

"Transactions like this week's new sponsorship agreement can only help to give us the resources to compete right there with the other big guys in the world."

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