Features

Groundsharing on centre stage

Author: Brandon Barker
Date: 01/12/2009
Football betting

The announcement last week that Everton's plans for a new 50,000 capacity stadium would have to be shelved following the government's refusal to award the club planning permission has forced the idea of a groundshare to be discussed.

With the rivalry between Liverpool, the online favourites to win the Europa League next year, the potential co-habitants, and Everton amongst the most intense in the country, is it really possible that they could be the first major English teams outside London to share on a full-time basis?

Factors within the clubs, and their respective plans, certainly suggest so. The Planning Inspectorate's decision was the final nail in a coffin that was already under construction after parts of the plans, such as the location outside of Liverpool itself, generated considerable opposition amongst fans.

Meanwhile, on the red side of the city, Liverpool's financial problems - compounded by their exit from the Champions League last week - limits their ability to finance a new stadium which is needed by a club that is struggling to get by on gate receipts from 44,000 fans, over 30,000 less than Manchester United.

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Everton's chief executive, Robert Elstone, was clear that the decision was not the end of their search.

"We do remain totally committed to finding a new home for our football club," he said after hearing the decision, suggesting that even a ground-share would be better than remaining at the 40,000 capacity Goodison Park.

Yet the most famous instances of ground-sharing, the use of the San Siro for Internazionale and AC Milan for example, only came about due to dire circumstances.

Milan, badly damaged in the Second World War, didn't have football stadiums as a priority for construction in the late 1940s, but Internazionale needed a home and a re-start after being used by the fascist government of the 1930s, and so negotiated a deal with AC Milan.

Even this apparently happy agreement is in reality hotly disputed with both clubs threatening to build a stadium of their own.

"Sharing with Inter isn't easy. Inter's directors have different ideas to us and so maybe it is time to think of two new stadiums," AC Milan's vice-president Adriano Galliani said in 2005.

A similar situation arose in Munich, when Bayern and 1860 both pushed to leave the Olympiastadion in the late 1990s and move to their own grounds.

1860's decision to join Bayern at the new Allianz Arena was hotly contested by fans and a key reason for the move was because president Karl-Heinz Wildmoser was bribed when the construction contract was bidded for - a crime he would be charged for.

If that farce wasn't warning enough for Everton then they can also be wary of the fact that 1860 have had to sell their half of the stadium in part to help pay off the debt they took on when they helped pay for its construction.

Relegation from the top tier, a distant but potential fear for Toffees fans, has left 1860 in a torrid state made worse by their ground-sharing arrangement and is just one of a number of warnings for decision-makers at both Liverpool clubs.

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