Everton open up groundshare talk

Three days before the 212th Merseyside derby Everton face an even bigger battle with Liverpool if they are to convince their closest rivals to ground-share.

The Toffees' plans for a new £400million 50,000-seater stadium and shopping complex in Kirkby, in association with Tesco, are in tatters after being rejected by Communities and Local Government Secretary John Denham.

Chief executive Robert Elstone admits the club will now consider all possibilities, including teaming-up with their neighbours across Stanley Park.

On the face of it a ground-share would seem the obvious option with Liverpool having put their more advanced plans for a replacement to Anfield on hold due to the current global recession.

However, the Reds' American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett are opposed to the suggestion as it would severely impact the anticipated revenue streams which come from sole ownership of a 61,000-capacity stadium.

Rivals fans would also not welcome a ground share but Elstone admits, with a club debt of upwards of £36million, they have to explore every alternative.

'It's certainly one of the options that we will need to cover,' he said. 'We are going to look forward and look forward positively. A shared stadium is perhaps an option if it's affordable.

'We have to look at where we can raise money, because potentially Liverpool will have to obviously contribute to that, and Liverpool City Council perhaps might need to find some money.

'If we are the first major English club to look at sharing then we're not scared of making those decisions. So we're going to have to start to have those conversations, we're going to have to be open-minded about solutions.'

However, Liverpool's deputy executive director Peter Shaw played down the possibility of the city's two clubs sharing a stadium.

'It's not on our agenda at the moment. Liverpool are progressing forward with our own stadium. That is the position we are still in,' he told Sky Sports News.

'The LFC stadium is quite far progressed and once the financial markets reopen for business the LFC stadium will progress further.'

When asked whether the idea of a groundshare with Everton could be a possibility, he said: 'That's not for me to answer.'

Finance is at the heart of Everton's problems - as it has been for Liverpool, whose new Stanley Park stadium was scheduled to be open in 2011 but now has no completion date.

Part of the attraction of the Kirkby plan was the tie-in with Tesco, and Elstone admits they need to search out new ways of bringing in the funding.

'The solution is not about finding land - this is a solution that is about finding money; it's about affordability,' he said.

'That was the big attraction to Kirkby, that it was affordable. Then it's about reviewing alternatives and sitting down with partners, all the stakeholders in this region and anybody who can help Everton deliver what it needs - which is a world-class stadium that's going to secure our future for years to come.

'Anything that we have to do going forward has to be clearly affordable and clearly make commercial sense. So that's the big challenge.'