Robert Elstone, Everton’s acting chief executive, has given a stark warning that the club face a bleak future unless controversial plans to leave Goodison Park and relocate to a new stadium outside the Liverpool city boundary are given the go-ahead.

Elstone has described as “monumental” the next few weeks, during which Everton, along with Tesco, their partners in the construction of a new stadium planned in Kirkby, aim to convince a government inspector, who will report directly to Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to dismiss opposition to the £400 million scheme.

The public inquiry starts today and Elstone insists that Everton need a favourable decision by next spring so that work on the stadium can begin in the summer. If all goes to plan, Elstone said that Everton would be in their new home by the start of the 2011-12 season.

Yet the proposed move has provoked outrage among fans who don’t want Everton to move to a town that is located in the metropolitan borough of Knowsley, outside the city boundary, and six miles away from Goodison Park, the club’s home since 1892.

Elstone insisted that Kirkby is the only viable option and said that the consequences do not bear thinking about if the public inquiry rules against the move. He painted a depressing picture of financial hardship that may concern David Moyes, the Everton manager, who signed a new five-year contract last month.

“We have been looking and looking hard for at least ten years,” Elstone said. “We’ve been looking at what we can do at Goodison, we’ve been talking to Liverpool City Council and other developers.”

“We’ve looked at whether we can make Goodison a 21st-century stadium with 50,000 seats and modern facilities, and that hasn’t been the case. Everton are 33 per cent behind the average Premier League club in terms of income. Five years ago, it was 19 per cent behind.

“Arsenal earn £3 million per home game and we earn £800,000. Over 19 games, we’re about £40 million worse off.

“As each year passes, we are increasingly clinging on by our fingertips to our rivals. The only way we can stop that and start to climb above them, in my opinion, is with a new stadium.”

Elstone said that Goodison Park’s facilities were poor compared with many other clubs in the Barclays Premier League. “It is hard to ask our fans for £35 to sit in a seat at Goodison. I went and sat in a seat last week and there were six pillars between me and the pitch,” Elstone said.

“Then if you want to go to the toilet at half-time or go for a cup of tea and a sandwich, forget it because you go down into a concourse and it’s chaos. It is absolutely not a stadium fit for 21st-century football.

“I’m not worried in the long term that we’d lose fans by moving to Kirkby. I think we can grow our fan base by moving to Kirkby.

“Having a brand-new, high-quality football stadium would go some way to mitigating things like the economy and televised games, which are having an impact on our attendances at the moment.

“Fans get their value for money from watching Arteta skip down the wing or Saha bang in a goal, but to see those things in a seat with no pillars in the way and be able to get a cup of tea easily at half-time, that would be better.”

Dave Kelly, the spokesman for Keep Everton In Our City, the supporters’ group, said that opposition to the club’s proposals had grown since a public inquiry was announced. “Due to the inappropriate amount of retail attached to the Kirkby scheme, I don’t think it has a cat in hell’s chance of going through,” Kelly said.

“If the secretary of state allows this, it would turn this country into the Wild West, running a coach and horses through planning legislation.”