Abandon the Dream?

To bring Everton to a zero debt position they need to sell all 35,000 shares at £2,000 as I believe a number of £70M was mentioned as total liabilities. As our current board has built up that debt then £2,000 per share should be the asking price – and not a penny more.

The reason the board would not sell for that amount is that they want a return on their investment and £2,000 will not give them any after the debt is paid. I am sure they are looking more in the £4,000 per share range as that will give them good profit for basically putting our club in debt. That would make the asking price about £140 million which is close to a number that has been thrown around on this site before.

So here is what you get for your £140M:

1) A stadium that needs a £200M investment.
2) An aging playing staff that needs about £200M investment over 10 years.
3) A training facility that you can buy back at £15M.
4) £100M to spend on advertising and marketing in general to make the name Everton as big as Man City is now and Man Utd have been, to get the club to finally turn a profit with success and worldwide recognition.

So an investment of £655M is needed for us to be in the running again... any takers? The least the board could do is knock £70M off.

No reason Goodison can't be spruced up. None.

As far as the asking price? Who knows. An EPL team that CAN'T be sold? What else could it be but the asking price?

We were not smart like the Shite two decades ago who started to buy properties around Anfield. We, right now, have no place to go apart from slicing up space behind the Park End or building upwards.

1. Goodison park is rebuilt over 10 years. Assistance with compulsary purchase of homes from the council as required means the council will have to be on board.

2. The cost of rebuild is staggered and carried out close season to reduce financial impacts (less matchday income). Cost of refurb / rebuild would be considerably less than cost of new. Plans have already been drawn up, we have no realistic alternatives. No naming rights, Goodison is good enough.

3. Moyes stays, sell off prime players to clear the debt, focus on staying in the premier league, anything else is a plus. Not very nice to take but short term sacrifice for long term gain.

4. Share issue to fans to partly fund debt clearance, re purchase of Finch farm, thus bringing some assets back into the club.

5. Current body of directors to either selectively sell off shares to third party (not current board member) as a real investment opportunity. [Never going to happen unless someone wants out.]

6. A strategic plan driven by commercially savvy executives to market the club properly, redo poor deals and bring income back into the club.

7. Enter into a long-term finance deal at favourable rates once the ground is rebuilt to refinance team building.

Or something like that... it may not be pretty but my guess is that's the only way it's going to change. By hook or by crook, I think it will be a variation of the above... maybe not all, maybe not exactly the same but the essence is there, we have to do something. Not just wait and hope.

The only thing more attractive than a team on the verge of CL is a Championship team with a big fan base that can get promoted.

Therefore we can only conclude that the problem is the board, nothing else makes sense.

Robert Earl is busy with his interests in the States, BK has a full time job as a producer, and Jon Woods hoovered up his shares for investment purposes only.

If you look around the ground at home games, you will see swathes of empty seats behind obstructed views, add this lost income over 20 years and you are looking at millions in lost revenues.

11 executive boxes, the lowest in the PL – and one still remains empty this season!!!

Sponsorship packages are still available for every game, and advertising boards are empty above the Street End.

We are on a par with Bolton with our commercial revenues, and we are tied into the worst long-term merchandising deals in the League.

Apart from that, we are doing quite well.

Goodison and the debt are all incidentals to people of this ilk, what isn't incidental is being ripped off – business people of their financial clout don't suffer fools and we appear to be infested with them.

It's certainly a mistake to believe Everton are unattractive to potential purchasers due to the "small" population of Liverpool, which incidentally is only about 50,000 less than Manchester.

Listen to the accents of fellow supporters at Goodison and you should realise that Everton draws support over a wide area encompassing Merseyside, North Wales and West Lancashire.

And don't underestimate the drawing power of Liverpool, the world famous city of the Beatles with its World Heritage Status.

They are professional businessmen with a plan and it is very difficult as a professional to deal with someone who is trying to sell the business but actually has no idea how it is run. Can you imagine:

"Hello, Mr Kenwright, can we ask you about these other operating expenses?"

"Ahh... I don't really know or have anything to do with that sort of thing... Let me tell you about my uncle bringing me to the Boys Pen on his bike. Oh here take these tickets to see Blood Brothers, and how much do you want to invest in my club?"

Did I make it up??

Merseyside, or the notional Liverpool Bay area, is very much compatible in size to Manchester/Greater Manchester. I also would've thought the disparity between Man Utd and Man City was significantly greater than that between us and LFC.

For the vast majority of the history of football Everton have enjoyed higher attendances than Man City, and Merseysides big two have enjoyed higher aggregate attendances for the vast majority of seasons too. Of course that is not possible at the moment given the size of the respective stadiums and the levels of success. Before recent times Man City's highest ever average attendance was just 42k.... a figure exceeded many times by EFC and dwarfed by our highest figure. So historically we can boast a bigger fanbase than them (although this will not last much longer if they continue to grow).

On top of that, there are numerous other clubs in smaller cities that have also attracted investors and buyers. For instance, all the major North-east clubs have greatly invested in their infrastructures and grown their attendances accordingly to a point that both Newcastle and Sunderland now regularly enjoy greater attendances than us. These cities are both significantly smaller than ours, and again we have historically averaged greater attendances for the vast majority of seasons. Their boards have reaped the benefits of expanded and improved facilities..... and the fanbases have grown.

This process has been repeated at numerous clubs, across all divisions throughout the Prem years. The clubs have done their best to create the facilities that would attract the fans back, to get the most from their respective fanbases.

We have done nothing...... Our stadium currently has approx 4,000 official obstructed views, but in reality has something nearer 3 times that depending on the criteria used. Fans can now watch all games in their local, and/or stream on their PC's..... therefore, these expensive obstructed views are far less attractive nowadays, especially given a lot of people's financial situation at the moment.

Also a sizeable proportion of our fans have already given up on the club. I'm sure we all know several old regulars who have got tired of the club's parlous state, the excuses and lies, and have voted with their feet. We saw a substantial drop in attendances last year, and this has only been corrected by some solid marketing and cheap child tickets this year, and of course the success of the few signings last year.

I'm sure significant investment in the team could also greatly boost our attendances. In other words the full potential has nothing like been extracted during football's boom years. We keep missing the boat or chasing white elephants.

Goodison can be updated.... within the current footprint, or by expansion in one or more directions. It can be done incrementally, to measure the real potential/demand as we go along, and to limit the impact on team investment. There is a more than healthy planning outlook in terms of expansion, and potential development partnerships to build on.

This might not benefit those harbouring ill-conceived out of town retail-led development, but that shouldn't by our concern. That option has been exposed for the lie it was. Every effort should be made to look at all the options at Goodison..... and there are many!!

Sadly I think we have to accept that Everton are not amongst the elite of the Premier League any more, either in revenue or trophies, something that our neighbours will soon have to accept that they will also not be in the elite Premier League clubs.

I wish I knew how to restore Everton to the very top again, but without massive investment – which so far hasn't materialised and looks a distant dream – I don't see a quick fix.

Hello Christine,

Thanks for your input and the initiative you've shown (you're thinking and many don't do this).

However I would like to raise a few points:

(1) Compulsory purchase orders open a painful moral pandora's box, moving the elderly from their lifetime abodes, etc (and there's a good chance any reds living there would challenge just for the hell of it), lot's of legal fees and off we to the high court! You have to purchase probably well over hundred properties and maybe even school (expensive!).

(2) To rebuild in the summer only you would be asking the construction company to divert its resources/manpower away from other projects they may have undertaken (expensive!).

(3) Moyes to stay? There's many already close to the point of mutiny, at the thought of that.

(4) Share issue to fans. That's potentially a good idea and it's been done before with some success. Barca did it, but their fan base is truly huge and relatively each fan did not have to put in much. Arsenal did something similar, but London's corporate wealth helped them there. Here I don't know, in the middle of a recession in an already poor(ish) city? Re-purchase Finch Farm? were's the money coming from?

(5) They're waiting for big payouts, they're in it for the money!

(6) I totally agree with you on that one.

(7) Enter into a long-term finance deal at favourable rates. Not much chance of that for a long time to come in today's financial climate.

Simply the Fans haven't got the money and there isn't enough of us, BK doesn't have the money and no-one will buy. We simply have to make good on the pitch and see what comes (the way I've outlined is one way of doing it).

The mess we are in took 20 years to get into; it will take hard work, expertise and commitment to put it right and more than likely it will take 10 years to fix. Certainly not with this bereft of any ideas board.

We need a long-term plan to work to, we need expertise in the board room to plan and execute a way out of the mess THEY created and are responsible for.

Their failure to put into place over 20 years, a workable strategy, with a feasible alternative is a reminder to all of us that they cannot, will not, endorse a solution that sees them with diluted shares or fewer shares.

There can be no investment without giving an investor something in return — otherwise we are looking for charity. There is no sale unless all the major shareholders sell their shares.

The problem is that simple. The solution will be a fire sale unless they commit to a long term solution.

It's all very true and grim (at the same time).

We simply have to win on the pitch and to get choosing the next manager right.

I agree with you, but I think it's attainable by a good manager (and backing by the board) who knows his football (we just have to find one, easy isn't it?).

A simply used them as a couple of examples..... However, Sunderland and Newcastle are both substantially smaller cities than Liverpool. Historically we have enjoyed greater average attendances than both these clubs far more often than vice versa. The main reason that we don't still is that our board haven't fully harnessed our potential support by providing the facilities and success to attract it.

Both these clubs now have substantially larger stadia, without any obstructed views. They have also employed strong marketing schemes over several years promoting season ticket sales, and attracted new fans. Check their attendances just 20 years ago.... and the decades before that, when they rarely matched ours.

I agree, that it isn't the 60s anymore, and our fanbase has been eroded by several factors, but we are still far bigger than many clubs who have had little trouble acquiring new owners and investors.

What difference might a new Bullens Road stand with 20-30 boxes and 14-18k unobstructed seats make? What state might we now have been in if we had had this in place for the last 10-15 seasons, when we've often been posting the full-house signs and our manager wasn't looking for pastures new?

Why haven't we managed to do what all our so-called peers, and so many smaller clubs have done? Real ambition and vision would have many of our fans back filling a bigger and better Goodison IMO.

The board haven't delivered, now many fans and even the tireless manager are looking totally unmotivated. Maybe a cup win might re-invigorate some of that, and I won't have to take lots of kids and the missus to fill the place!

THE CLUB IS NOT FOR SALE.

BK is looking for some (one/muppet/idiot) to 'invest' in the club... ie, put money into the club but BK stays in charge. This is simply not going to happen and hence 10+ years of '24/7' have lead us to precisely... nothing.

On the economics front, given the the new TV rights, practically every Premier League club is potentially a great investment. Assuming we maintain top ten finishes, Everton will earn approx. £50M a year in TV money alone. Add in gate receipts and our (currently very poor) commercial income, and you're looking at an annual turnover of £100M+, before any potential revenue from a decent youth and transfer policy (I wish!). How is that not a decent investment? And that's WITH the current muppets in charge!

The fact that Liverpool is not as big as Manchester or London, for me is not actually that relevant (it obviously makes a difference but is not the be-all and end-all). Everton have a constant home gate of around 35k every league game – that is not an insignificant number and is one of the highest in the league. This is not going to go away anytime soon. Our main problem(s) are the many balls and chains (on top of our management) which we have to carry, which include;

a) our gate receipts were mortgaged out for about 25 years with the idiotic securitisation deal we did around 2002 at a very high interest rate - so ticket income is technically already gone, it goes straight to the bond holders. (The loan money we took out is obviously long gone, difficult to explain exactly what we gained from doing this.)

b) the equally idiotic sale and lease back of Finch Farm, for which we pay a very high 'rent' every year for a long long time (£1M a year for 50 years I think!)

c) The shit deal we have with Kitbag which limits the income we can make on our own merchandise (club has no incentive to grow – eg, shirt sales and the like – as what we get from kitbag is all we will get)

Etc etc.

The stadium is an issue but management is the main problem – we have effectively almost strangled ourselves to death. Also a decent management team would/could have solved the stadium issue by now – it's not like it just popped up, its been an issue for 10-15 years.

The main problem (imo) is that there is simply no plan. Our management style is to stick head in sand and deal with issues on a reactive basis rather than proactively sorting out the longer term.

I am obviously no football expert, nor architect but many suggestions have been made for redeveloping GP if no other site was available. This would be a whole lot cheaper than building a new stadium and could be done in stages, so our cash flow would not be fucked. One would think this could have been done stage by stage over the last decade... but again – there is simply no plan and no communication from those in charge.

Until BK is gone, it'll be head in sand for the foreseeable future. (We may have to wait until he's actually 'gone' gone before we can pull the Everton shares out of his cold fingers!)

The guy simply will not let go of the train set.

By all means buy us and invest in facilities. Even spend a bit buying players – you just won't be able to pay them.

CPOs and planning can be far less onerous when you have a co-operative council armed with residential and urban redevelopment schemes. The areas around Goodison have been earmarked for such development options, and combined with the Football Quarter outline plan there is great potential. LFC are already on line to deliver their part of that over all scheme with plans for several streets of terraces, and extended stands etc.

Also, It has been shown that GP's expansion needn't infringe excessively on the surroundings to meet all our capacity and ancillary facility needs. There are numerous examples of similarly constrained sites yielding greater capacity stands. It could be problematic, but so could any site, and it certainly needn't be a show stopper according to local planning officials.

There is only one site that offers incremental development and tried and tested transport infrastructure. These issues, and the whole history and heritage factors have great value... that you cannot readily purchase elsewhere.

For example, what exactly do you classify as players' 'wages'? Do you include image rights or not? Win bonuses, appearance fees, endorsements, sponsorhips etc. I'm sure the lawyers will figure out a way that transfers funds from the club to the players in a way that 'technically' does not match the description of 'wages' (or whatever term is used) in the FFP rules. The players will still get paid.

For another example, see the naming rights 'income' that Man City get for their stadium, £400m! One man's sugar daddy cash injection is another man's naming rights 'income'.

FFP is at least a step in the right direction which admits there is a problem; however, it won't actually solve the problem. Not that I'm cynical or anything....

• Less than 100 houses (@ a generous £85,000 each)
• 1 school – to be re-built somewhere (Stanley Park?) as an Everton in the Community school
• 1 car dealership to be relocated

Now obviously there's the small matter of buying back Goodison Park (how much is the outstanding mortgage?) and re-developing, but with a small sacrifice (there could even be enough left over for a cheaper replacement with potential) that's a pretty generous plot of land, possibly with space for the other commercial interests (hotel, retail, entertainment) to serve the football quarter.

If only the board would step up, listen to the fans, and do something.

It's like asking a car salesman to put new tyres on a car, even though there just enough tread to pass an MOT, or a property developer wanting to put a new roof on a house, but the old one is not leaking.

They are quite happy to sit on their investment for few years yet. It requires no time, no business plan, has a captive customer base, and certainly requires no inward investment on their behalf – stay in the League; happy days.

This new TV deal has given them the breathing space to find a mug who wants to pay a fortune for a vanity project. That's what they are looking for, they couldn't give a shit about the future.

I guess I'm with the likes of Christine and Tom on this, the dream doesn't need to be abandoned, but a long-term, gradual plan should be in place, we shouldn't delay whilst waiting for the mythical billionaire investor.

Please read the article again (and think about it) and then answer why they chose City (who no one in the world knew existed!) over Liverpool (a ready made club with a huge fan base and history)? What was so wonderful about Liverpool that made them purchase that club in Manchester?

Yes, I'll agree with the main points of your 620 post, but even supposing the compulsory purchase went well, there is the question below: Where's the money coming from?

Good point Ernie and one I failed to see/include.

"THE CLUB IS NOT FOR SALE"

I've been giving BK the benefit of the doubt up until recently, but......

Good point and well said.

If he won't sell it then it's all the more reason to take the youth route?

35k is a decent attendance, but I suspect anyone prepared to build a £400M stadium for us and invest in the team would want a significantly higher attendance (50k absolute min) and all the other things to go right, to justify their outlay. I'm not sure we can get 50k week in week out?

It's all cold calculations in the end.

"There can be no investment without giving an investor something in return otherwise we are looking for charity. There is no sale unless all the major shareholders sell their shares. "

You've hit the nail on the head and drove it right through.

For the them to spend:

£100-200M on players
£400M Stadium
Buy back Finch Farm and reverse all the other silly financial deals done?

They are going to want something back and within a reasonable period. I can't see what we can give them?

For a start, if you can show me a British stadium that has cost £400M to redevelop to 45-50k capacity then your point might hold. They have all been significantly cheaper than that. Even the entire Emirate scheme was less and that was for the biggest executive tier outside of Wembley.

If no club had managed to find the cash to build new facilities, then your ultimate point to me might also hold... but the fact is: ALL other clubs have found funding methods to achieve/deliver their new stands or even whole new stadiums. Many with far smaller fanbases than ours, or much lower turnovers, and even many with less wealth on the board. If you frequented many of the grounds 15+yrs ago you would now find them completely unrecogniseable from what you saw then. How have they all done it, and yet we can't?

As with any development... the money can come from several sources, but as ever, it needs to start with a plan. We haven't had one, as evidenced by every failed decision of the past decade and more.

Attractiveness is what sells any commodity including a football club. Unfortunately our board missed the boat in increasing the attractiveness of our club as a saleable entity when it totally ignored the chance to get into Europe by showing ambition and strengthening our meagre squad.

If they were serious in their quest for investment then they should have ensured the squad was sufficiently strengthened for the final push for Europe by investing a bit of their own money. Unfortunately they did not and that's the rub!!

The fans invest their money by paying for seats each week and by buying club merchandise. The board watch free and just want survival in the premiership to protect themselves... anything we gain above survival is a bonus.

So when people say the board should invest more as we all want, I suppose Earl and Green were only ever in it for the money and see no reason in spending anymore money as they are struggling to get a return on what they have already invested and BK has virtually done his money in buying the club.

This means the club must be self financed as any well run business should be, but what other industry would have owners subsidising the company largely to pay employees massively inflated wages for a business that was losing money hand over fist

Nah. Can't think of any reason.

They can want what ever they want, it doesn't necessarily mean they are automatically entitled to it. Likewise, if the resident Blues on the board have incurred massive internal debt on the club by borrowing off their wealthy friends, just to fund their control of the train set, then that is their own fault, and shouldn't be to the detriment of the club and its future, as appears to be the case.

Real opportunities have been squandered and so many other clubs have achieved far more with their resources. Perhaps, the ineptitude wont really ring out for some until we haven't got a manager who can work on such a low budget.....

Moysie goes (possibly); Bill doesn't let the new manager strengthen the team (definitely, as he's broke); we end up getting relegated. The fan base drops considerably, the stars leave, the TV revenue dries up and, hey presto, Bill's train set is worth about £25 million.

The future revenue he has mortgaged has gone, Finch Farm is still draining us dry, and the lack of investment is turning into his own personal bankruptcy petition.

Sounds like the only way to get him to let go of the reigns is to let the club free-fall and watch Green and Earl get a hit man on him. Then, 5 years down the line, we start rebuilding with sound leadership and sensible advertising and sponsorship deals.

That just might work... but would it be worth it??

However, we are talking about large sums of money in order to deliver this kind of objective and all stakeholders would have to buy into the idea.

There will come a time when the fans will say "Enough is enough". How long that takes God only knows as for sure Billy Liar has a great publicity machine.

I am waiting for the annual good news /investor/ white knight rumour to start hitting the media just before the Early Bird Sale. And yet they fall for it every year.

Hello Tom,

Here are some stone cold and very hard facts about steel (which is by far the priciest constituent / element of any build.

The index price for steel was 127.0 in 2006 (when Arsenal built their stadium), the price in 2011 was 191.7. When Arsenal actually purchased their steel which would have been years in advance (maybe 2), the index price in 2004 was 111.0 (even cheaper). Can you see the trend?

When Arsenal bought their steel it was around the 111.0 mark, that's hell of difference. I'm happy with my £400M estimate (it may well need to be revised up?).

Why the Ajax model – what's it done for them recently? Their decline can be directly tracked back to moving stadium.

Why abandon your dreams? I am firmly with Tom Hughes – the dream of a redeveloped Goodison comes before the plan, the plan comes before the reality. This board lack the dream because they want to move. They will see the old place fall down around their ears before they will start a redevelopment.

I agree with a lot of what you say especially about squandered opportunities, and completely endorse your opinion on what will happen if Moyes leaves in the summer. I think BK ended up borrowing off friends because the banks refused too and that is probably his biggest mistake. I don't necessarily think it was to keep control of the train set as you put it, but more to try and help David Moyes bring good players to the club.

The alternative would have been to say the banks wont lend us any more money so I am stepping down as chairman to see if a buyer will come and take over the club. But while waiting for a new owner how would the club have moved forward, in fact I think given this scenario we may well have lost the manager and maybe one or two players. This might have led to a downward spiral even to relegation.

But unfortunately we can't alter the mistakes of the past, and I worry about the future, we see the owner of QPR pumping in millions and will carry on if they stay up. Even the promoted clubs will have more to spend in the transfer market than us given the massive hike of the Sky money.

This followed by a meeting with our clowns allegedly. I would love to know the truth of these rumours and those emails that shot about. I happened to get told all this in a meeting with someone whom that day had been dealing with a shareholder and big director of a major Merseyside company, his words when asked about Kenwright where none too pleasant, only rumours but I would just love to know the truth.

But as for what Bill Kenwright would get for selling Everton. Probably about twenty years, I would guess. This is because he is only one amongst a number of owners of course.

There's been a few on here who have quickly jumped on my "relatively a small city" statement, I could have explained it in a better way.

If I could re-write the article I would use the phrase "catchment area". Our catchment area where most of our fans come from, for both Everton and Liverpool is Merseyside, this is a reasonable opinion, do we agree with that?

Man Utd and Man City catchment area is Greater Manchester, we agree? The London clubs have Greater London and the home counties as their catchment area, we agree?

London catchment: 9 Million
Mancester catchment: 2.7 Million
Merseyside catchment: 1.4 Million

And in terms of generated wealth, we are also a poor third. This is taken into consideration any buyer.

Man City probably have more fans from Manchester than Man Utd do. It's nothing to do with catchment areas... Leeds has one club and get far smaller gates than we do. Newcastle are also a big city with only one team.

I have been in Goodison Park three times with over 70,000 fans before it became limited. If you had been at the cup tie against Liverpool, you would have seen BOTH grounds filled and thousands in the street asking for the score during the game... and it was night match.

Both our city clubs have a fantastic fan base, it's the ground limits that keep gates lower.

Have a read of my "catchment area" post above.

And by the way if use the definition of City as a City not including Boroughs, then London is absolutely tiny compared to Liverpool.

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT?????

"Why abandon your dreams? I am firmly with Tom Hughes-the dream of a re-developed Goodison comes before the plan,"

Right then Mr Dreamer, Let's burst your bubble.

"Why the Ajax model-whats it done for them recently? Their decline can be directly tracked back to moving stadium."

THAT'S THE MOST RIDICULOUS FOOTBALL STATEMENT I'VE READ ON ANY FORUM OR PROBABLY EVER HEARD!!!!!!! DID YOU REALLY SAY IT????

How many Champions Leagues have Ajax won compared to us and our wonderful system?

Who won the league in Holland for the last 2 years? "Their decline can be directly tracked back to moving stadium" - Really?

Who's currently 2nd and only 3 pts behind?

Where did Barcelona copy their youth system and playing style from?

Who set up Barcelona's youth system, I'll give you a clue he's Dutch and comes from a team in Amsterdam?

YOU REALLY KNOW YOUR FOOTBALL DON'T YOU!!!

GOODISON PARK RE-DEVELOPMENT

I have yet to see a single one of you re-development (emotional) dreamers state where the money is coming from to do this?

Ray, you don't know your elbow from your arse!

Regardles of being at Goodison with 70,000 fans or just 36,000, the majority of them come from Merseyside.

I asked you where was the redeveloped stadium that cost £400M... and you offered me some simplistic steel index which doesn't even represent the true cost of steel for construction, nevermind the broad range of cost factors such as specification and design. In any case, the steel cost will rarely constitute more than 35% of construction according to Rod Sheard's stadium design guideline. So nothing explains this over-inflated cost.

The point I was making was that no stadium redevelopment has cost anything close to £400M. In fact, most have been significantly less than £100M. Destination Kirkby was in total just £100M in full construction cost (at incidentally quite a high steel price) for 50k new seats...

This price index has fluctuated greatly over the last decade. So much so, that the proposed Spurs stadium was said to have a similar construction cost to the Emirates even though it was to be built several years later... and it is a very similar design by the same architects. However, the main point is that adding say 15-20,000 new seats to Goodison (net gain of 10-15k) will never cost the same as the Emirates which also had an expensive land cleaning and acquisition bill that will not apply to a GP redevelopment. Look at the costs to create St James' and Stadium of Light extensions; these were tiny in comparison ranging from £1-3k per seat.

As regards, the population figures, you should also remember that the Merseyside and Greater Manchester discriptors are historical misnomers dating back to their 70s origins. Wigan, Stockport, Rochdale, Oldham and Bolton are included in their catchments. Whereas Merseyside doesn't include many of the original Liverpool Bay area populations extending out to North Wales and West Lancs and North Cheshire which would've greatly elevated our figures. Political differences ensured the original proposed boundaries were never realised. Hence the reason why for the vast majority of the history of football our city's aggregate attendance has exceeded Manchester's.

These are the historical "cold facts" backed by attendance figures going back 100 years. Man City have only averaged more than EFC a handful of times and only more than LFC in recent years when they've had a bigger stadium.

Robert - "TEA!!!!!!!!!!???????????

No I would NOT like a cup of tea.

And why would I not like a cup of tea?

Well let's burst your 'would you like tea?' bubble shall we you dreamer.

BECAUSE I PREFER COFFEE!!!!!???!!!!!!????

YOU REALLY DON'T HAVE A CLUE DO YOU MAM!!!!!!???"

Etc blah.

Why don't you come off the LSD and try glue instead.

Just try to book a city centre hotel on match day. Do you honestly believe that the plus 70,000 gates came from Liverpool only? And that was before cars were plentiful, the Irish ferry and the coachloads from Wales flooded in.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

Steve Cotton #665

I'm beginning to feel exactly like you in regards to the future. I have resigned myself that the only way we can again become challengers is if we face the unthinkable and get relegated; this way, Blue Bill and the other clowns will be broke and finally be forced to sell.

Drama student possibly?

However, it really doesn't matter because it's not going to happen unless someone wants to hand over a couple of hundred million for the privilege of owning the shares and the debt. That's just the amount required to sit at the table.

That's what is really the issue, not a stadium; let's face it, if a buyer came along and said to the board, "I will buy he all the boards shares for a total outlay of £50M, restructure or eradicate the debt, and relocate a stadium for a further £150M, what do you think they would get as a response from the board?

Yes, please? Or thanks but no thanks...

That's the problem, not population, not catchment or how many buses cross the Dee or Mersey, it's up front money and the value placed on shares.

I wonder how many potential buyers have walked away... 24/7 only means a sale or investment on the board's terms only. The question therefore is simple: "What are the desired terms of sale?"

We are not the Merseyside Millionaires any longer. The rebuilding of the stadium or the relocating of the stadium is vital, but where to? Is the Stanley Park site available that Liverpool have rejected? We lost out on the marvellous King Dock site and that was the worst of Kenwright's awful mistakes.

All the demographic talk in the posts above tells us one thing: the city of Liverpool, even for the global brand of Liverpool FC, is a small base compared to London and Manchester.

People like Fernandes put their money where they think it will work best for them. Everton is not attractive outside of Greater Meseyside. I live 130 miles away, I see kids in Man Utd, shirts, Chelsea shirts, Arsenal shirts, Liverpool shirts, but not our shirts.

While Bill and his cohorts keep aiming for the kind of price they want for their shares, we'll remain an unwanted commodity. I think that Liverpool FC will continue to make losses and if they fail to make The Champions' League their demise is as inevitable as ours.

I think you may be right but he might be tempted if we could assemble a dream team of Sharon Corr, Gethin Jones and Lee Latchford-Evans.

Unfortunately Andrew Lancel is a bit tied up at the moment so I had to rule him out.

We have posters quoting £500-600 million. I heard an Echo Journo quoting these figures a while ago – what the fuck are people smoking these days?

Give our manager a guarantee he won't have to sell to buy, and £20m in this transfer window alone could have propelled us into a CL spot.

Who says if you purchase Everton you have to win the League & build a new stadium – don't fall for the hype.

We could be bought by someone who would slowly improve the stadium, make small transfer pots available for the manager, and progress gradually.

I don't think Spurs have spent this fictional £½ billion, and they are now in the top ten clubs in the world.

The current custodians have not spent a bean, so an investment of even £20m would surely be a huge improvement, or I am missing something here?

Likewise, GP can have a capacity increase (both in terms of quality and quantity) and the main problems solved incrementally for a fraction of the figures bandied about. Indeed this should've all been long completed by now.

Inflating costs wildly, and/or factoring in imaginary reasons for the club's failures to sell or deliver anything, is pure smoke screen stuff. You can build a plausible argument for anything, but the multiple failures and real issues are glaring and well-documented.

I stand to be corrected but I thought that Sheik Mansour went for Man City, rather than, say, Liverpool, partly because he didn't need to finance a new ground. Eastlands, as it then was, was ready and waiting and so he could put money straight into team-building.

Tom, I based my £400M (a fact) value on Liverpool's failed stadium of 2004, that stadium was a proper stadium and not an MFI flat pack with Tesco's and WH Smith built in.

I think though, we've both become a bit side-tracked on this cost issue. Regardless of the cost — £78M or £400M — the money is just not available to build it and that was the whole point of my article, we don't know where it's coming from or whether it will ever come. We have to concentrate on what we do have team wise and make it better.

Christine, one thing I'm sure of is that the likes of Earl (and the rest of them) didn't get involved in our club because they love it, they're here because they are probably expecting a handsome profit further down the line (on their what they thought would be a short term investment). Instead they're waiting and will wait for as long as it takes until that "jackpot" offer comes.

"I wonder how many potential buyers have walked away... 24/7 only means a sale or investment on the board's terms only. The question therefore is simple: "What are the desired terms of sale?"

We'll only know the truth when BK has lost his power and those little people doing his bidding now have pangs of conscience enough to spill the beans.

I thought I was quite respectful in my post and offered an honestly held opinion. I didn't insult you.
Try easing of the caps please. IT MAKES YOU SOUND LIKE A NUTTER.!!!!!!!!!!!! You actually sound like you are about to swoon like a fifties drama queen-a touch of the Bette Davis about you Dahling? You mus be EASILY OFFENDED!!!!!!!!! Its a very shouty post you have made, have you heard of internet protocol? If you cant master it then get rid of the laptop and ask the nice attendants if you can the crayons back.

The City of London is different to London.
Burst my bubble? Sorry takes more than an internet warrior to do that.
You say (scream actually) YOU REALLY KNOW YOUR FOOTBALL DON'T YOU!!!I I actually do know my football but I respect other fans and their opinions

You say 'Ray, you don't know your elbow from your arse'. You are entitled to your opinion. I don't agree with you but I respect your right to make a complete raving arsehole of yourself.
Have a nice day and remember 'caps lock OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That way a number of things happen:

1. Protect their own investment and don't see it or the club, devalued to a point of no return
2. A good management team can tackle the clubs commercial interests and put a plan together to build up the clubs profile
3. The demise of the current ownership will I have no doubt attract potential investors or buyers because the terms will not be the same or the conditions of sale
4. It would invigorate the club and fan base and most importantly unify them once more.

The scenario above can still be seen as a shareholder protecting their investment, but it would also be seen in the best interests of the club, something the current board have failed to convince anybody of.

Sometimes the answer lies within and not from afar.

Hello Ray,

I've just had another look at you're post and it was polite, I have to admit you have a case, I was "sharp" with you.

Last night I had a few bottles of pop in the pub watching the ManU game, I came home and checked the posts and started firing away without noting your politeness.

I apologise.

The re-development issue, is one I find that is left unanswered when I ask about funding (but you are entitled to you dreams, If I'm honest I'd love a new and fully re-devoloped GP, but it will never happen) tends to rile me a little. The Ajax statement you made was just plain wrong if you check the facts.

Hope you can accept my apology.

I have checked and Ajax won the Dutch title 6 times since moving to the new stadium in 1996 so I admit you won that point.

Respect!

ps: I haven't forgot Destination Kirkby but that shouldn't even merit a mention.

Don`t give you much hope for the future whoever buys us, does it?

It's like comparing Easy-Jet with British Airways, they might both have a fleet of aircraft, but are in different markets.

Every time someone wishes to make a comparison with either a manager, or how a club is run, they pick Portsmouth, or Blackburn, or QPR — clubs not even remotely comparable.

Would you compare Woolworths with Apple?

Firstly, the costing of all LFC stadium proposals, of which there have been many are hardly factual or definitive, they are initial outline costings only..... What are the comparative costs for all the ancilliaries and land acquisition, what are the actual construction costs for the stadium itself? KD was also quoted as a £400m development at first, yet the stadium cost was eventually revealed as just £100m, but the headline was always the former figure to start with.

The Emirates was a far more extravagent affair than LFC's, on a much more expensive and problematic site, so I very much doubt that the actual stadium construction cost would've gone that high back then...... indeed the final design for the Park was the most ambitious scheme of the lot, and yet was forecast as costing even less than this, and that was several yrs later too. But perhaps the most pertinent point might be that they have eventually drawn the conclusion that redevelopment of the existing site will be the most economic option. Whereas the costings of the redevelopments I mentioned, that were actually built are factual!

On top of everything of course, we would not be considering a stadium of the scale of that proposed by Liverpool in 2004. That's why I picked up on your figure as I think it distorts the argument, as it is probably innacurate and is in anycase irrelevant...... There are far more compatible and accurate costings to reference.

"Regardless of the cost — £78M or £400M — the money is just not available to build it and that was the whole point of my article, we don't know where it's coming from or whether it will ever come."

Most clubs who have redeveloped (and that's nearly every club in the whole league, why are we an exception?), or built from new haven't had the readies at hand to pay up front for new stands. Yet they have all found funding solutions, and are now reaping the benefits of increased capacity and quality facilities. Most had smaller fanbases and turnovers than us, several have since overtaken us on the average attendance league. Our Board haven't just inherited this problem they have had over a whole decade to study their options and act on them.

The Kings Dock debacle was a complete dereliction of duty, and DK was a planning disaster and completely unviable from start to finish. The club haven't even adequately assessed the redevelopment option as evidenced by documentation revealed at the time of the ballot. The propensity for recurring fundamental cock-ups are the real reason why we haven't progressed on these issues.... not some belated after-thought of concentrating on the team spend...... which let's face it is hardly evidenced by our net spend over those yrs. If the funding problems is a result of the make-up of our ownership then this needs to be resolved asap. We have been stagnating for too long, and if/when Moyes leaves we might soon see the true state of our affairs!

You may be right, I can't remember any reasons tbh. However, I'm not even sure of the logic of Man City already having a stadium being a strong enough reason, as Anfield also exists, is probably far more iconic, and only slightly smaller (at present). It is also fully owned, unlike Eastlands, and can pack them in at higher ticket prices, as Liverpool have a fanbase that is several times the size of City's with reputedly a season-ticket waiting list of over 100,000......

May be they just like the colour sky blue...... maybe they didn't like the fact that LFC had already turned down interest from arabs..... who knows?

Hello Kevin,

Concerning Richard's post 056, I might be wrong (but your comparisons between Easyjet and BA are definitely right), I think what Richard is getting at is that if you give £100M to any manager to spend on players and he buys the crap QPR bought, you've got yourself £100M (of unwelcome) debt if you couldn't afford to spend it in the first place. I personally see a warning to all chairman in Richard's post — make sure you have the right manager!

This is the reason I would expect a like-for-like comparison. Spend £100m on our squad, and I would expect to be pushing for the title.

Personally, If we had £100m, I would want that windfall spent on Goodison, this would then raise our long term revenues to grow organically, rather than see short term debt.