Commissioners have slammed Liverpool Council ’s “failure of governance” over a potential loan agreement with Everton FC over the funding of a new stadium.
The local authority has been ordered to conduct an investigation into how it incurred “significant expenditure” to investigate the possibility of a loan to Everton FC as the club sought funding options for its new ground over a three year period.
A cabinet report to be discussed behind closed doors next Friday has detailed the damning verdict of government appointed commissioners to how Liverpool Council acted “without any formal council approval and without any budget provision approval” from April 2016 to March 2019. Between that time, according to the report, the local authority engaged with Everton “to investigate assisting with the funding of a new stadium development project” but these discussions “were ultimately unsuccessful.”
