Liverpool clashes with Everton, Man Utd & Arsenal impacted by Anfield expansion delays
- The firm overseeing Liverpool's expansion project went into administration earlier this year
- Anfield has been operating at reduced capacity this season
- No further work will be done this year
By Tom Gott
Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan has confirmed no further work will be done on the expansion of Anfield until 2024 at the earliest, meaning the clashes with Everton, Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle will be impacted by a reduced capacity.
Work on the famous stadium began in 2021 and failed to meet its initial target of being completed in time for the start of the current campaign. While the lower tier of the Anfield Road Stand has re-opened, Liverpool have not yet been able to open the remainder of the stand.
The building firm in charge of the project filed for administration earlier this year, forcing Liverpool to halt the project and evaluate the options available to them.
"Obviously when Buckingham Group filed for administration, that impacted people’s livelihoods, people’s jobs so I do want to make sure that we just remember that and mention it, and I do want to thank everybody who has worked on the project and all those that are currently working on the project," Hogan told club media. "And I certainly want to thank all of our supporters for their patience and understanding while we navigate through the situation, which as I mentioned has been incredibly challenging over the last few months.
"In order to maintain consistency on the project, we kind of mentioned this earlier, working closely with Rayner Rowen we’ve been able to place orders from over 80% of the remaining work needed to complete the stand with those sub-contractors who had previously worked under the Buckingham Group.
"So, all of this effectively has been helpful in Rayner Rowen having the opportunity to gather the vital information as well as continuing with the outstanding work in all the various areas of the project to come up with what is ultimately a revised project completion programme."
However, Hogan declined to put a timeline on the project but he did confess that no further work will be conducted for the remainder of 2023.
"What I would say is over the course of the last few days it has become clear that in order to complete a thorough assessment of that project completion timeline, it’s going to take longer than really we first thought," Hogan admitted.
"Ultimately, what that means for supporters is that until we have visibility of all the information needed, we’re going to have to maintain the status quo for the remainder of the calendar year, essentially meaning capacity at Anfield will remain the same as for the previous home games that we’ve seen this season. The lower tier of the stand remaining open and the upper tier remaining closed until the end of the calendar year.
"The reality is, we’re just really now beginning to get a clear understanding of what the reality of the delays are.
"There’s a lot of different, various factors that are going into this discussion and into this review, so many pieces of the jigsaw that we need to pull together so it’s just not possible at this point to put a new timeline in place. And, frankly, we don’t want to set the wrong expectation. So, we are continuing to work closely with all of those different stakeholders but ultimately we need to give them the time to gather all that information and come up with what is a realistic project completion programme."
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