Entrevista a Rick Parry sobre el nuevo estadio del Liverpool

Si alguien sabe inglés y tuviera la amablilidad de traducir esta entrevista al director ejecutivo del Liverpool, Rick Parry, sería de agradecer, o al menos algunas preguntas, que parecen interesantes como las que conciernen a la capacidad del nuevo estadio. Gracias. EXCLUSIVE: RICK PARRY INTERVIEW Paul Rogers & Mark Platt Liverpoolfc.tv speak to Rick Parry about the club’s hopes for a new stadium on Stanley Park How significant is today's development in terms of Liverpool Football Club submitting a request for planning permission to build the new stadium on Stanley Park? It's not a surprise, it's not unexpected and it's not a huge news story in any sense but it's part of the process that's really evolved over more than three years and I guess the key interest in what goes in the planning application is what things look like. The stadium itself isn't going to be that far removed from visuals displayed on this website in May last year. It has moved on but the stadium itself is not massively different. What is different is the way the setting of it has evolved over time both within the context of the park, the cemetery and Anfield Plaza - a tremendous amount of work has gone on in furthering those ideas. Perhaps at one stage we envisaged that our part of the planning application would end with a red line around the stadium but a long time ago that was deemed to be not acceptable and therefore now the planning application encompasses a much broader area and really does demonstrate that this whole development has now moved on to restore Stanley Park to it's former glory. The same goes for the football pitches on the park, the Gladstone Conservatory, the cemetery and the Anfield Plaza on the current site of the present ground. The Anfield Plaza in particular is quite a complex issue and that may be one of the reasons we're a little later in submitting the planning application. The original thinking was that we'd swap the land on Stanley Park for the land where the present ground is and the current site would become part of the park. That was deemed unacceptable by English Heritage and CABE who said that was too much windswept open space and that they wanted to see some development there. So, in conjunction with the local people, a series of ideas have developed about what to do with AnfieldPlaza. The message really is that the stadium is just part of a really exciting plan for the area and it does link into the regeneration of the whole of North Liverpool and the housing strategy for the area. This is so much more than the stadium - it's a very, very exciting opportunity for the whole of North Liverpool. It will be a joint venture between the club, the city and the community. Having worked so hard to get the community onside over the years, we're very keen for that process to continue. The concept of the joint venture is to make sure that this new development and, in particular, the park and the cemetery is always properly maintained and cared for and kept in top quality condition. It is a pretty groundbreaking venture and it's one that we think is absolutely fitting of the Capital of Culture and it's one that we think is absolutely a beacon project that should be top of the list of priorities for the Capital of Culture. This is why the timing is absolutely crucial from our point of view because it's our aspiration to have the stadium developed before 2006 but we also want to see Anfield Plaza developed by 2008 in time for the Capital of Culture and we think that's also what the community and city should aspire to. Of course, by definition, you can't start Anfield Plaza until we move out of the current stadium. It's quite simple, if the stadium isn't ready for 2006, Anfield Plaza won't be ready for 2008. Can you tell us a bit about the new stadium? There'll be 60,000 seats. The stadium will be of the highest quality and is similar to the designs which were revealed last year. It's very much a traditional football stadium in as much as there are four stands that will be linked by the roof. When we were investigating a stadium with 70,000 seats, it was very much a bowl stadium that would have been built as an oval. What we have now is four stands and if anything, it's more of a traditional stadium than it was, which obviously means thefans will be closer to the pitch. A tremendous amount of thought has gone into the actual seating plans so it will be state-of-the-art in terms of spectator comfort. We've got some underground car parking underneath the stadium, which is good news from an environmental perspective for the park. The fact that we've got four stands means that we can have one very dramatic stand that will become the new Kop. It was made very clear from the beginning that if we submitted a design that was a Meccano-set of four boxes then under no circumstances would that have got planning permission in the park. Have the corners of the ground been closed up? The corners have been closed up to the lower tier. The original design did have open corners but they've now been filled halfway up so the overall impact is that the stadium is enclosed. The original plans that we published had very much open corners and I think both a lot of fans and ourselves weren't sure about the look of them. What we've achieved since then is added 5,000 more seats and filled in some of those blanks. Have you decided what will happen to the Hillsborough Memorial? We've spoken to the Hillsborough Family Support Group extensively and the Hillsborough Memorial is staying where it is for the time being. What they've said is that they'd like to see how things develop. Their thinking is that the Hillsborough Memorial should be incorporated in a suitable place within the new stadium. Precisely where that place is remains to be seen at this time. I think they want to sit back and see how things evolve and that's perfect from our point of view. The Shankly Gates and the Paisley Gates will still be there but the exact location of them is still to be determined. We always said we'd take the views of the fans on board and something like the gates could go one of two ways - they could stay where they are and provide the link between the old and the new or it might be appropriate for them to movetothe new site. I would just like to make it clear that while exact locations for the memorial and the gates hasn't been decided yet, they are considerations that are uppermost in our minds. Have you planned anything for the people who've had their ashes scattered within the present stadium - whether it was on the Kop, on the pitch or on one of the other stands? We've committed to having a memorial garden that in part will commemorate the memory of all the people who've had their ashes scattered within the present stadium. Again, the precise location of the memorial garden is still to be decided. What will happen exactly with the present Anfield site? It is going back to the community in effect and the community have been very good in their vision for what they would like to see replace the current stadium. For me, I think this is an opportunity to build on our Capital of Culture status so instead of talking about a corner-shop and a post office, there should be things built here that are world class in their own right. The people that we have consulted have come up with suggestions like a hotel, like a cafi/restaurant, they would like some offices so that people are coming here on a daily basis and they would like some high quality open space and maybe some hard-landscaping for an open-air market. The site itself is large enough for two Liver buildings. There was a lot of young people and school children involved in the consultation and one of the kids drew a drawing of what he'd like to see built here - it was a priceless picture of the largest Kentucky Fried Chicken in the world! The whole thrust of the thinking was that they would like whatever's built here to attract visitors to the area because they will spend money in the area. At the moment people aren't spending money in Anfield because there's nothing to spend money on. Tourism also creates jobs for local people and that in itself is a good thing. We don't want all of the Capital of Culture projects appearing on the waterfront - let's take this opportunity to take some of this regeneration and excitement into North Liverpool. I should stress though that Anfield Plaza is a work in progress - it has not been worked up to the same level of detail that the stadium has. To get the stadium built for 2006, we have to be on site next spring - it's essentially a two-year build - but we cannot start building Anfield Plaza until 2006 so there isn't the same degree of urgency with that development. Will there be facilities within the new stadium for the community to benefit directly from? Absolutely. There is a whole side of the stadium - facing onto the park - that will be for community facilities. A new Vernon Sangster sports centre, new changing facilities for the park's football pitches, a college led by Liverpool Hope University College, the Reducate centre and also the Club's community coaches will all be housed within the stadium itself. We've always been committed to finding a new venue for the Vernon Sangster Sports Centre and we've found that the best place to put that is in the stadium itself. There will also be extensive educational facilities within the stadium, which will benefit the local community. How much money and time has gone into reaching this stage where you're actually now in a position to submit an application for planning permission? Several million pounds and a phenomenal amount of man-hours over the last three years - it's almost impossible to stress just how much work has gone into getting to the stage where we're at today. Given that amount of time and money already invested by the football club in pushing forward plans for the new stadium, were you surprised the notion of the ground share idea came up only recently? I don't think I've been surprised by anything given the hurdles we've had to jump to get this far. What was critical from our point of view was that the application for planning permission was going in. We cannot delay. If we sit around now, this new stadium won't be ready for 2006 and that would have a lot of knock-on effects for the Capital of Culture year in 2008. We have to carry on. The ground share idea could have been raised a little earlier in the day but it wasn't and it's something we have to deal with. Does the fact that you've today submitted this application for planning permission, mean the idea of a ground share is dead in the water as far as you're concerned? It's a Liverpool Football Club planning application and that should be quite rightly seen as a strong signal from us that as far as we're concerned it's business as usual. We're all aware that both sets of fans have expressed their views fairly graphically on the issue of a ground share and that's clearly something that we are bearing in mind. The message we are getting back from the community, which is very significant, is that they don't want delays. Their aspiration isn't to get a new stadium, it's to get their community regenerated and to get the housing strategy underway. The message that is coming back loud and clear is that they don't way delays, they want things to start moving. The other thing to bear in mind is that we've spent three years getting our supporters onside with the new stadium plans. We've taken the brickbats, we've gone through that pain, we're ready and it would take an awful lot to deflect us from the course. The one thing that the debate about a ground share has teased out over the last couple of weeks is the strength of views from supporters on both sides. The reality is that that they've come out thus far strongly against the idea. A lot of it is emotion but the day that emotion goes out of football is the day that we might as well pack it all in. To say that we would ignore the views that our supporters have expressed is just something that wewould never do. It would be ridiculous. Are you surprised how supportive the majority of fans have been with regards the stadium move considering you're planning to leave the most famous football club stadium in the world? I'm not sure everyone has been with us 110% in terms of everybody thinking the stadium move is exactly what they wanted but even the ones who have been anti the move have understood why we're doing what we're doing. I think they also understand that we're staying in Anfield so it's not too far away. I think some fans have tolerated it despite not being 100% onside. What's quite interesting though is how the same people's views shift quite dramatically as soon as someone mentions ground share. It's kind of, 'Listen, we didn't really want to leave Anfield but we kind of understood the arguments and we'll back you on that BUT'' The number of letters I've had on that theme in recent weeks is amazing and it's been the same on this website's message boards. How are the club able to afford #80m for a new stadium? It's about using extra revenues that the new capacity in the new stadium will give us to fund the actual building of the stadium. We're not dipping into existing funds. We're not going into this in a way that could threaten our ability to strengthen the team in any way. The whole purpose of this is to help make us more successful. We're not building a new stadium just for the sake of having a new stadium it's to generate additional revenues to make us more successful on the pitch. If we continue to succeed and if we continue to fill it then at the very least it will be self-financing and, of course, when it's paid for, it will generate a very substantial amount of surplus cash. That's in no sense rocket science. It's a very, very simple model. It's the normal model for stadium funding these days. What we've come up is something that is world class and something that we can be proud of. Which is what Liverpool Football Club is all about. We're not ashamed of quality, we're proud of it but it's not Wembley-cost. Some people will ask: Why 60,000 seats? Why not 70,000 seats? Going back to the very early days, we were thinking about 70,000 seats but what we had to look at was the economics and how we could make that work. Our starting point in terms of any new stadium was that it has to pay for itself and it has to be able to generate more funding. Had we gone ahead with a 70,000 stadium, the ground itself would cost something like #130m to build which you would then have to look at the transport implications of bringing another 10,000 fans into the area. Coming back down to 60,000 is not something that I'd call a compromise because we're proud of what we've achieved. But it does enable us to increase capacity significantly whilst still being a sound business case. OK, it's not as big as Old Trafford but that was never our starting point. Our starting point was what works for us and what's right for us. Nobody knows what the demand will be for tickets in 10 years or 20 years time but we think what we're doing is right. We've gone back and looked at trends in terms of attendances over the decades at Anfield and we think 60,000 will be big enough for this club. There is no historic case really that says there is an absolute justification for building a 70,000-seater stadium. If you look back through the 60s and 70s and track our attendances, they were never at the level of 70,000 every other week. If we achieve success on the pitch, we'll fill it. If we don't, we won't. Having said that, it's never been part of our philosophy to plan for mediocrity. If you plan for mediocrity, you'll achieve it. Could the capacity be increased at a later date? No, because of both where we are building it and the nature of the design. Is there a name for the new stadium?The presumption is that it's going to be Anfield and there's been no suggestion that it will be called anything else. I'm not giving you a 100% guarantee on that because we haven't actually sat down and decided that that's what it should be but why would it be anything else? So there are no plans to sell off the name of the ground? No. At the risk of hanging myself in the future, we've said from the beginning that we're not interested in selling our soul and that remains true today. Entrevista extraída de: http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/archivedirs/news/2003/oct/8/N142173031008-1130.htm

-Yo lo intentaria tío, pero es que es un pedazo "tocho" que a estas horas no apetece mucho... SALUDOS

JAVIDELUGO escribió:

te traduzco eso q es loq dices q t interesa mas.... Algunas personas se preguntan: POr qué 60,000 asientos? Por qué no 70.000? En los primeros dias nosotros pensabamos en una capcidad de unos 70.000 pero lo que teniamos que mirar era la parte economica y cómo podiamos hacer ese trabajo. Nuestro punto de partida en terminos de cualquier estadio nuevo era que este se tenia que pagar por si solo y ser capaz de generar mas ganancias. Si nosotros hubiesemos afromtado un estadio de 70.000 el suelo por si solo habria costado unos 130 millones para construir y tendrias que ver las implivcaciones de transportar otros 10.000 hinchas a la zona. Los 60.000 no es algo que yo llamaría un compromiso porque nosotros estamos orgullosos de lo que hemos conseguido. Pero esto nos permite incrementar la capacidad significativamente en terminos de negocios (supogno que se refiere a la vista de la operacion economica, realmente eso debe ser una frase hecha pero no la entiendo). Vale, no es tan grande como Old Trafford pero ese no fue nunca nuestro objetivo. Nuestro objetivo (punto de partida) era lo que funcionase para nosotros y lo que fuera correcto para nosotros. Nadie sabe la demanda que habrá de entradas en 10 años o 20 pero nosotros pensamos que lo que estamos haciendo es lo correcto. Hemos revisado la asistencia a Anfield de decadas y pensamos que 60.000 será suficientemente grande para este club. No hay un caso historico que digas que habia una absoluta justificacion para construir un estadio con 70.000 localidades. Si tu miras atras a las decadas de los 60 y 70 y ves las asistencias, nunca se llegaba al nivel de 70.000 cada semana. Si nosotros conseguimos exitos en el campo, lo llenaremos. Sino, no lo llenaremos. Habiendo dicho esto, nunca ha sido parte de nuestra filosofia planear mediocridades. Si tu planeas mediocridad, tu logras mediocridad. ¿Podría incrementarse la capacidad después de la construcción? No, tanto por el lugar donde estamos construyendo como por el diseño Hay un nombre para el nuevo estadio? Se supone que se llamará Anfield y no ha habido ninguna sugerencia para que se llame de otra manera. Yo no te doy una garantia al 100% sobre esto porque realmente no nos hemos sentado a decidirlo que es lo que debemos hacer pero ¿por que iba a ser otra cosa? Asi que no hay planes de vender el nombre del campo? No. A riesgo de que me equivoque en el futuro, nosotros hemos dicho desde el principio que no estamos interesados en vender nuestra alma y esto sigue siendo la realidad hoy. otros en cambio si van a vender su alma por irse a una ruina llamada la peineta. he intentado hacerlo lo mas fiel posible y creo que se entiende. he traducido loq viene entero ni he quitadop ni agregado, otra cosa es que lo pueda haber expresado de otra forma pero es esencia es lo mismo. www.peinetaNO.tk

Muchísimas gracias Angeleke. La pregunta sobre porqué 60.000 asientos y no 70.000, era la que más me intersaba. Gracias.

JAVIDELUGO escribió:

de nada hombre. no tenia nada mejor q hacer.... bueno si q tenia pero no m apetecia jeje

leí no me acuerdo donde que la comunidad de madrid propuso que se construyera un campo para atleti y madrid, y que se tiraran los otros dos, pero por el escaso interes que eso trajo, lo anularon en na de tiempo.

jodr a mi la aficion del liverpool me encanto el otro dia y su you´ll never walk alone, INCREIBLE