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How Much Did Sir John Hall Pay To Rename The Leazes…?

9 years ago
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Can anybody tell me what Sir John Hall paid when he named the Leazes End after himself?

I only ask because while Liverpool refuse to consider selling the naming rights to their stadium, they are looking at the possibility of paying for much of their £75m redevelopment work by selling the naming rights to the main stand.

As well as aiming to add around 5,000 seats to the Anfield Road end, Liverpool have now got planning permission to add 8,500 seats to the main stand by adding another tier.

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The new capacity would be almost 59,000 by the time all the planned work has been completed, with the club hoping the work will be finished in time for the 2016/17 season.

Chief Commercial Officer Billy Hogan told the Liverpool Echo:

“The new main stand is going to be a big focus for all of us. The process is still ongoing. We’re getting closer to certainty but we’re not there yet.

“When that certainty arrives, from a commercial standpoint we’ll be ready to get to work on that. We wouldn’t consider selling naming rights for the stadium as a whole but in terms of the name of the main stand that’s something we will look at.

“We’ll be looking to bring in a number of new partners. A naming partnership for the stand would make sense.”

Football finance experts have estimated that Liverpool could raise up to £50m a season if they did sell the naming rights to Anfield, though Liverpool’s owners understand that would be unacceptable for the fanbase and so have no plans to go in that direction.

Compare this to what we’ve been subjected to at Newcastle United, Sir John Hall shamelessly renaming the Leazes End after himself with not a penny of extra income going into the club. This was on the back of the fortunes his family and the Shepherds paid themselves in salaries, dividends and bonuses whilst they were at the club, before getting the final jackpot when Ashley rocked up.

Hard to tell whether the Leazes End has still got the Hall name attached to it officially, when you go on the club website to buy tickets it is referred to as the Leazes End but not sure elsewhere.

As for Mike Ashley, he matched Sir John Hall by then renaming the whole ground after his Sports Direct empire with nothing going into the club coffers, laughingly claiming that this was simply to try and tempt a stadium sponsor out of the woodwork.

I always think when Newcastle fans start claiming that Mike Ashley or Sir John Hall were better for United, they are all wide of the mark, the two of them are simply as bad as each other.

Both taking liberties with the club and the two of them making fortunes out of Newcastle United and the supporters.

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