Everton stadium cost balloons to new nine-figure high in appeal judgment documents reveal
The cost of building the new Everton stadium has already increased past £800million, it has emerged in the official documents from the club’s appeals hearing.
After Laurence Rabinowitz successfully argued the Toffees’ case and got the points deduction reduced from 10 to six, the full judgment revealed there had been “uncontested evidence” submitted to show that the club has “to date” committed more than that number to the project.
The entire construction was initially announced as a £500m project, which itself proved long ago to not be the case after Farhad Moshiri referred to it as the “£760m stadium” on talkSPORT over a year ago.
It appears now that the financial hit has now far surpassed that, with paragraph 135, point (iii), on page 37 of the points deduction appeal judgment stating: “There was uncontested evidence that the new stadium posed an inevitable strain on the finances of the Club which has to date committed over £800m to the project.”
Reacting to the discovery the esk wrote on Twitter (26 February), simply: “WOW!!!”
Bramley Moore Dock development has now cost Everton over £800million and counting
The Athletic’s Matt Slater had suggested last summer that the stadium could end up costing “as much as “maybe even” £800m as he dismissed the “complete nonsense” claim that the original £500m number was a “fixed cost”.
But if it has now been revealed to have already gone past that level then it illustrates just how much more of a drain on the finances on Merseyside it has been than planned.
Spending on such a project is supposed to not be included in the profit and sustainability loss calculations, and it is a very sore point that interest on loans for the stadium ended up being counted.
The increasing cost of the stadium saw Farhad Moshiri turn to outside investment, and MSP Sports Capital ended up putting £150million in, only for their minority ownership deal to fall through and 777 Partners to come in for a full takeover.
It is far from the first construction project to end up running way over the initial budget, but is a huge increase from what had originally been claimed.
When complete the stadium has been tipped to be the jewel in the club’s crown, and could prove to be the one major positive from Moshiri’s reign, but the process of getting there has been a huge struggle.
In other Everton news, Jamie Carragher claimed the points deduction appeal could have been avoided entirely live on Sky Sports.
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