ARSENAL IN ALL SORTS OF TROUBLE
Arsenal have set themselves a 15-week deadline to secure funding for their new stadium, after which they will consider scrapping or shelving the Ashburton Grove project indefinitely.
"We are working towards achieving the new stadium but you can never be
confident when banks have got to go to credit committees and they've got to get the approval of people you have never met and never seen," said Arsenal's managing director Keith Edelman.
"But they've been working with us for a long time, they're still working with us,
they're excited about it and we're hopeful we can achieve the project. We should be in a position to have got this done by the end of the year, and if it goes longer than that you are into a problem period because it means it is not coming together.
"The fall-back plan is to review it at that time. We would have to look at why it did not happen as to whether you decide to hold Ashburton Grove and try again in a year or two, or say it is not a possibility and we should sell it off and look at alternatives.
"The board debated the new stadium a couple of weeks ago and everyone was
unanimous that this is the No1 option. There is a 30-acre site at Ashburton Grove and to develop a stadium within the environs of Highbury with fantastic public transport, that's the opportunity of three or four lifetimes. It will not happen again."
In the past 12 months Arsenal have seen a small cash surplus plunge to debt
totalling £60.2m because of borrowing for the new stadium. Although Granada's money and the deeds to the Ashburton Grove land will offset that debt, Arsenal
must hope that London property prices do not plummet.
"We are working towards achieving the new stadium but you can never be
confident when banks have got to go to credit committees and they've got to get the approval of people you have never met and never seen," said Arsenal's managing director Keith Edelman.
"But they've been working with us for a long time, they're still working with us,
they're excited about it and we're hopeful we can achieve the project. We should be in a position to have got this done by the end of the year, and if it goes longer than that you are into a problem period because it means it is not coming together.
"The fall-back plan is to review it at that time. We would have to look at why it did not happen as to whether you decide to hold Ashburton Grove and try again in a year or two, or say it is not a possibility and we should sell it off and look at alternatives.
"The board debated the new stadium a couple of weeks ago and everyone was
unanimous that this is the No1 option. There is a 30-acre site at Ashburton Grove and to develop a stadium within the environs of Highbury with fantastic public transport, that's the opportunity of three or four lifetimes. It will not happen again."
In the past 12 months Arsenal have seen a small cash surplus plunge to debt
totalling £60.2m because of borrowing for the new stadium. Although Granada's money and the deeds to the Ashburton Grove land will offset that debt, Arsenal
must hope that London property prices do not plummet.