In October 2012, new owners Fenway Sports Group announced their decision to redevelop and expand the current club stadium Anfield (in a similar way that they redeveloped Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox) rather than proceed with the planned new stadium.

Under the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillette, Dallas-based architects HKS were asked to present a plan for a 60,000 seater stadium that could be easily expandable to over 73,000 in the future.

This was dubbed "New Generation Anfield" and would seat 73,000 with 18,500 in a single tiered kop, similar to the HKS capacity.

In January 2012, the Telegraph reported that the new club owners Fenway Sports Group had decided to ditch the HKS design on the basis of cost and practicality and focus on working with AFL's "First Generation Anfield" plans.

were approached by Liverpool City Council to become a tenant on the flagship King's Dock project.

informally inquired about building on North West section of Stanley Park, Liverpool but were deterred when told that a Victorian covenant was in place.

Everton agreed to this as they would only need to raise £30million for a 55,000 capacity stadium and the rest would be paid for with public money by the council.

wanted to build on the South East area of Stanley Park and that they were considering leaving the city boundaries and taking millions of pounds of income that would usually be paid to the council with them.

[9] At the time, Everton chairman, Bill Kenwright chose not to contest the reasoning because they were being given financial support from the public sector.

In February 2007 the club was bought by American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr.

However the pair failed to secure funding for the stadium, and the AFL plans were replaced by newer and more expensive HKS ones.

Former Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry announced on 5 October 2008 that although the stadium would still be built, work would be delayed until economic conditions improve.

[20] Despite media rumours, Liverpool FC always maintained that a ground sharing situation was never on the agenda.