Liverpool Football Club Stadium Delayed By Credit Crunch

Liverpool Football Club has confirmed it has delayed construction work on its new 60,000-seater stadium, despite Laing O’Rourke starting site works in June.

A short statement from the football club said that the stadium construction, “Like many other major development projects in the UK and overseas” was affected by the “global market conditions..Our commitment to building a new world-class Liverpool Football Club stadium is undiminished. Like many other major development projects in the UK and overseas we are affected by global market conditions and as such work on the project will be delayed in the short term. We will use this period productively and revisit the plans for the stadium to increase its capacity to 73,000 seats."

There has been widespread speculation that Liverpool’s owners, US tycoons George Gillett and Tom Hicks, have been struggling to raise funding for the £400m stadium.

The statement added that the football club would use the extra time to develop proposals to increase the capacity of the stadium, designed by Ryder HKS, to 73,000.