Liverpool Eyes Up Sponsored Stadium

For Liverpool fans it will be verging on heresy, but the club today looks likely to follow in Arsenal's footsteps by offering the Anfield stadium title for sale in a bid to make money.

Rick Parry, the Liverpool chief executive, said in an interview to be broadcast tonight that the club is exploring sponsorship for its stadium in Stanley Park, due to open in 2007.

Last year Arsenal signed a £100m, 15-year deal with Emirates airline to sponsor its new Ashburton Grove ground, a move unpopular with many fans.

But Mr Parry said the size of the north London club's deal had given Liverpool serious food for thought.

"I have to say historically it is something I have been against, and I have been on record as saying that, but I think the size of the Arsenal deal is a real eye-opener, " he said in a interview for BBC Radio Five Live.

"I would say in the past deals have been done frankly far too cheaply and it just hasn't even been worth contemplating.

"But the Arsenal deal is the sort of deal that causes you to draw breath and say 'wow - that's interesting'."

And Mr Parry said a sponsored stadium would be "a hell of a lot more palatable" than sharing a stadium with Merseyside rivals Everton, a plan repeatedly put forward.

Sponsored stadia are big money in the US and there were even moves recently to offer individual stops on the New York underground to sponsors.

But although he recognised that Liverpool fans would find a sponsored stadium hard to accept Mr Parry countered: "I recognise it would be an emotive issue for many supporters, but you look at the amount of money available and it could go into the team.

"If it was the right partner how strong an issue is it? Time will tell.

"I think the stadium will always be Anfield, not least because of where it is, but do we need to investigate the possibilities of sponsorship? I think it would be remiss not to.

"That's not to say we have made a decision that we will go down that road, but I think it is clearly something we have to explore."

The trend for football stadium's traditional names to be superseded by those of sponsors is becoming increasingly common as clubs seek out new ways of financing massively expensive stadia and wage bills. Bolton Wanderers play in the Reebok Stadium and Leicester play at the Walkers stadium.