The Liverpool Club Thread. **No Spoilers**

I find it staggering that there's even a debate over whether they've been good owners. People can point to blunders and apologies but look at the bare facts. They took over a club in a complete mess, that other than the odd season, hadn't come close to competing at the top of the PL in near 20 years and needed huge infrastructure work. In 7-8 months time we'll have a 61k seater stadium, a brand new training ground and have a side that's consistently challenged for titles over a number of years, including winning both a League and CL. And they've done that without putting the club £1bn in debt, while competing with nation states ****ing money up the wall.

Are they perfect? No. Do they care about Liverpool or even football? No, they're here to grow their investment but they know that the best way to do that is by building a successful and sustainable club, which they've done very well.
 
BaZ87 said:
Sorry, when did FSG take money out of Liverpool? @HACO

As of the last set of accounts there is an inter-company debt (money owed to FSG) of just over £70m. Although this peaked at £110m in 2016, it's broadly hovered around the £70m mark for most of the past 8 years.
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I recall payouts to FSG when I was last reading the records, it may be debt repayments.

Mark1989 said:
I maybe in the minority but I think FSG have been good over all yes some blunders but invested in the structures e.g. improving training grounds and the stadium.

Far worse owners out there.
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Oh absolutely. They took us from the brink of bankruptcy and build a very sound business model and culture around the club, they signed the right managers and players. We could have never dreamed of any of this back in 2010 given the state of the club.
 
HACO said:
I recall payouts to FSG when I was last reading the records, it may be debt repayments.
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The club took out some bank debt at the start of the pandemic (presumably as a safety net) and repaid a chunk of that but no repayments were made on loans from FSG in the last accounting period. Money owed to FSG is the same today (£2m more actually) as it was in 2013 - as I mentioned, it did briefly peak at £110m at the time of the Main Stand completion but I wouldn't classify that being paid down to the same level as 2013 as them taking money out of the club. They provided some short term extra funding (on top of the funding that went before) and that returned to the same level a couple of years later.
 
BaZ87 said:
I find it staggering that there's even a debate over whether they've been good owners. People can point to blunders and apologies but look at the bare facts. They took over a club in a complete mess, that other than the odd season, hadn't come close to competing at the top of the PL in near 20 years and needed huge infrastructure work. In 7-8 months time we'll have a 61k seater stadium, a brand new training ground and have a side that's consistently challenged for titles over a number of years, including winning both a League and CL. And they've done that without putting the club £1bn in debt, while competing with nation states ****ing money up the wall.

Are they perfect? No. Do they care about Liverpool or even football? No, they're here to grow their investment but they know that the best way to do that is by building a successful and sustainable club, which they've done very well.
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I agree it's why I've never understood the idiots going FSG OUT.
 
Probably the European League collapsing was the trigger to cash in. It's just not a viable business to keep up in football. They have run the club fantastically well to maximise what they had to spend.
 
The idea that it's not a viable business to keep up in football isn't really supported by the actions of other American investors into European sides. It wasn't just the queue of Americans battling to pay £2.5bn to buy a hugely loss making Chelsea that require a further £1bn+ on infrastructure work but also the £600m odd paid for Lyon and the circa £1bn paid for another hugely loss making club in AC Milan. There is clearly a belief in the US that there's big financial growth still to come from European Football. They're looking at the global viewing figures of football, particularly the PL and comparing it to that of the NFL and other US Leagues and then looking at the difference in TV revenue. The NFL earns around 3x as much from it's TV deals as the PL despite having a far smaller global audience. Whether it's through existing streaming platforms or whether the PL go it alone, TV revenue is going to explode again, increasing the values of these clubs even more.

The issue with FSG is they're made up of around 20 investors and while Henry is the biggest shareholder, there will be plenty of people with different views. If somebody offers them enough to justify selling now then they well but that's been the case for 10 years too. I suspect, in an ideal world, they want somebody to come in and pax £xm for 10-20%, allowing them to take out a huge chunk of cash (so they can invest further elsewhere) while retaining a majority position so they can take advantage of even greater profits in the future.
 
BaZ87 said:
The idea that it's not a viable business to keep up in football isn't really supported by the actions of other American investors into European sides. It wasn't just the queue of Americans battling to pay £2.5bn to buy a hugely loss making Chelsea that require a further £1bn+ on infrastructure work but also the £600m odd paid for Lyon and the circa £1bn paid for another hugely loss making club in AC Milan. There is clearly a belief in the US that there's big financial growth still to come from European Football. They're looking at the global viewing figures of football, particularly the PL and comparing it to that of the NFL and other US Leagues and then looking at the difference in TV revenue. The NFL earns around 3x as much from it's TV deals as the PL despite having a far smaller global audience. Whether it's through existing streaming platforms or whether the PL go it alone, TV revenue is going to explode again, increasing the values of these clubs even more.

The issue with FSG is they're made up of around 20 investors and while Henry is the biggest shareholder, there will be plenty of people with different views. If somebody offers them enough to justify selling now then they well but that's been the case for 10 years too. I suspect, in an ideal world, they want somebody to come in and pax £xm for 10-20%, allowing them to take out a huge chunk of cash (so they can invest further elsewhere) while retaining a majority position so they can take advantage of even greater profits in the future.
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That’s how Kroenke got Arsenal, a little piece bit by bit.
 
Let's face it FSG know the game is up and they are selling while stock is high because they know a massive rebuild is around the corner.

I wonder which Arab state is going to buy them?
 
Do you think it will effect your performance on the pitch?

Your not 100miles away from puting a challenge in on the top 4.

Attacking metrics your right near the top which is helping you some how hang in.

You just can't tackle and have one of the worse successful tackle success rate in the league. No one seems to want to put the footin.
 
Football finance is broken. I've never supported FFP and I still don't believe it's the correct solution but something has to happen to prevent football continuing this arms race of spending and spending. It's not sustainable and more and more clubs are going to go to the wall because they're being forced to spend beyond their means to compete.
 
BaZ87 said:
Football finance is broken. I've never supported FFP and I still don't believe it's the correct solution but something has to happen to prevent football continuing this arms race of spending and spending. It's not sustainable and more and more clubs are going to go to the wall because they're being forced to spend beyond their means to compete.
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I know it is a bit of a strange analogy but it reminds me somewhat of the BTCC during the 90's. It got to a point that they were spending tens of millions on each race team and all the major manufacturers were involved. It eventually collapsed because the money got too silly and teams just ended up leaving.

You are starting to see that problem right now. Before there was the big 4. Then that turned into the big 6 with the addition of Spurs and City. Now it has really extended to 9 with Leicester, Westham and Newcastle.

That leaves us with the rest of the teams fighting it out just to get into the top half of the table spending absolutely crazy amounts.
 
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