Liverpool FC stadium - special

In the wake of the withdrawal of Dubai International Capital (DIC) as an investor, Liverpool's new stadium development must be in serious doubt once more. Surely even Liverpool can't keep using the "special case" plea ad nauseum and get away with it.

And if Lord Stevens ever fancies broadening his inquiry into probity in football, perhaps he might like to examine the goings-on in Self-Pity City between Liverpool FC, and the local development agency and the EU, whose funding is so desperately required for Rick Parry et al to fulfil their dream of concreting over the famous Victorian Stanley Park for a new stadium.

For those who haven't been following Wallowpool's tawdry attempt to have public money fund their business expansion, here's a few pointers.

When the local council suggested a ground share between Everton and Liverpool (both of them skint, both with shabby, outdated stadiums), the exploration soon descended as usual into bitter enmity.

Liverpool separately convinced the council, and the North West Development Agency (NWDA), who hold pursestrings on enorrnous investment capital for regeneration, that a museum and "job-creating plaza" on the Anfield Road site would form a valuable part of the refurbishment of the locality.

Visitors in recent years will have noted block after block of boarded-up 'corpy' - run-down Victorian council houses - around the Anfield Road stadium. This is earmarked for redevelopment as the city gears up for its status as 'city of culture' next year. (An aside, but all it means is that from now on when your wheels get nicked, they prop the car up on books rather than bricks.)

Anyway, go-it-alone Liverpool were hoping to start on the stadium in spring 2005. Yes, that's right: two years ago.

There were several issues of course, not least of which was the escalating cost of the stadium, money that the club did not have in the first place.

The NWDA was asked to put £23m into Liverpool FC's begging bowl. In summer 2005 the NWDA refused on the grounds that £9m of it would be used for the club's own purposes rather than the local people's needs - not for the first time pretentious Liverpool were guilty of claiming to represent the community rather than its own commercial interests. Rick Parry wanted to spend £9m of the NWDA money on the stadium roof, soundproof wall cladding and an underground car park. Exactly what poverty-stricken single parents and the elderly wanted, eh?

Move on to February 2006, and despite the NWDA saying it "cannot use public money to pay for the construction costs of the planned 60,000-seater ground", the wily Scousers appeared to have teased £10m out of the agency "for the regeneration of Anfield and Breckfield".

They squeezed almost as much again - £9m - from the EU's Objective One purse, which can legitimately be used to fund private companies' schemes, since its aim is to promote economic prosperity.

However, it has never been made clear whether any of this money would be used to buy the Anfield Road stadium, going straight into the club's pocket, and the suspicion remains.

The key premise to this Objective One grant is the unproven notion that a football stadium can somehow regenerate an area. Perhaps the NWDA and EU would like to show how the existing Goodison Park and Anfield grounds have brought affluence to the surrounding streets. That would make interesting reading.

The big catch on Liverpool FC receiving all this vital dosh was that Parry had to prove they had the full capital for the stadium development - by now risen from £70m to £190m - in place by the end of July 2006.

If they didn't have that money by then, they would lose the critical quango cash. Somehow, despite hawking the club round Thailand and elsewhere like a cheap whore, Rick Parry failed to meet this deadline. Somehow, it was extended.

Parry even told an EU special meeting at the end of that month that the cash was in place. Subsequent events must cast the assertion into doubt.

At the same time, in an act of blind faith (or simply because, a. They're all Reds, or b. They were petrified they would lose a chunk of the £190m earmarked for local regeneration themselves, and the public works employment the stadium would bring) the council's executive board suddenly announced they had agreed to make Grade II listed Stanley Park available to Liverpool FC on a 999-year lease at £300,000 per year.

This despite more than 400 objections from individual residents and local organisations opposed to the scheme.

The final decision on whether Liverpool FC had proved they had the capital to construct the stadium was supposed to take place at the end of September 2006. Predictably, leaves were falling from the trees, but still Parry could not produce the goods.

Amazingly, the EU still coughed up. The promised £9m European grant would even be topped up with the taxpayers' money as planned.

In December 2006, though, it became clear that the decision was predicated on Liverpool delivering on the promise of capital from the investment by Sheikh Mohammed al Makhtoum's DIC following the Arab corporation's planned acquisition of Liverpool.

DIC spent two months on due diligence - an exclusive examination of the club's finances and viability - and was preparing a final bid to takeover. However, this week it is reported that DIC became so incensed with the Liverpool board's slothfulness in making a decision (especially that of majority shareholder Moores), as well as its preparedness to listen to an alternative offer from George Gillett, that it withdrew its offer.

The whole Stanley Park project must now be in serious doubt. Gillett, an American tycoon widely reported as a $500m (£300m) "billionaire" who wants a new toy for his son to play with, is no Sheikh Mohammed. If anything, as one City observer put it, he is a "poor man's Malcolm Glaser".

Since Glaser dumped an estimated £600m of debt on ManUtd Inc to buy it, the Objective One gnomes of Brussels must be dispatching Gillett-related emails as we speak.

The meeting of Liverpool Council's executive board, at 8.30 tomorrow morning (Friday 2 February), could be very interesting.

Even if it's not 'Dubai-bye' to the stadium project, quite what would happen to the Liverpool squad during its costly construction is open to debate. Arsenal survive building the Emirates largely on the back of a batch of low cost, exceptional young players. A team built around James Smith, Danny Guthrie and Lee Peltier will neither challenge for honours nor fill 60,000 seats.

Scousers love their history, so here's a lesson from it: unlike Chelsea, Liverpool FC have never built their own stadium - they took over Anfield from Everton - and it looks like they never will.

"The fields of Anfield Plaza", anyone? I didn't think so!