Liverpool in Greece

Premiership football is big business. UEFA’s Champions League is even bigger, and for Liverpool (the City as well as the Club) the biggest stage of the lot beckons once again for the second time in three years.

I won’t even begin to discuss the sporting aspects of the Reds’ place in the Athens final two weeks today. But I’m fascinated by the commercial prospects for the city and the rest of Merseyside.

A few years ago an eminent national business leader remarked during a visit here “Liverpool is a city whose time has come.”

That was before Istanbul. Or Athens.

What better time for a team sharing the City’s name to walk tall in Greece? It provides the perfect launch pad for next year’s reign as European Capital of Culture.

True, there may be some concern; disquiet in some quarters, about what sort of a legacy 2008 will leave Liverpool and the wider region of Merseyside.

But we can be sure the year itself, the programme of highlights, the new arena, Liverpool 1, (and the football on both sides of Stanley Park) and lots of other things will attract thousands and thousands of extra visitors to the city.

That being the case, isn’t it really up to us to make the most of it?

On the evidence of our own eyes, those who had earlier attended the topping out of Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool can be pretty sure it is on target for what promises to be a spectacular opening early in Capital of Culture Year. And it will be a big tick in the post 2008 legacy box too.

Smart, and state of the art it undoubtedly is, but I’ll dare to suggest ACC Liverpool will never recreate the atmosphere generated in either Anfield or Athens.

That’s not a criticism – it’s more to do with the crowd capacities of the respective venues.

Where ACC – and the other project radio listeners have been assured will be ready will score – is in demonstrating the resilience and determination of the city to re-energise itself.

Strong qualities worthy of the best football teams too.

And qualities that potential investors would do well to remember typify the new Liverpool. The Club and the City