Everton have the financial resources to build a new stadium, the Mayor of Liverpool has claimed.
Joe Anderson made the admission little over 24 hours after the Blues and Liverpool City Council announced plans to scrap the proposed Walton Hall Park development in favour of two ‘brownfield sites’ in the city.
The two sites under consideration are understood to be the council-owned Stonebridge Cross, near the East Lancs Road, and the north Liverpool docks.
And Mayor Anderson has insisted that the financial problems which hampered Everton’s first failed stadium move to the Kings Dock at the beginning of the millennium are no longer an issue.
“This is why I am so confident about the period of time – because while it’s really up to the club, the finance is going to be there and met by the club,” he told the Liverpool Echo.
“If it were a dockland site that’s not owned by us, so they would have to purchase that.
“If they do something with us then what they put in, in terms of a stadium, will help create leisure and jobs around the area so we are prepared to do a deal with them that brings the scheme to fruition.
“I am restrained in talking openly about this while they are still talking to (other) landowners. But if they go for a council-owned site we can put in leisure to create jobs.
“We can’t do retail because that would be competition with other parts of the city region, but we could certainly do leisure and things that support the stadium, restaurants and different things.”