Fans launch bid to buy Liverpool
2008-01-31 11:06:35
A GROUP of high-profile Liverpool FC supporters will today unveil radical proposals for a £500m fans’ buy-out of their club, in an audacious display of supporter power.
The Share Liverpool FC Group is looking for 100,000 fans to raise the money to purchase the club from its current American owners and build a new stadium, with an investment of some £5,000 each.
Many Anfield fans are furious that a £350m loans package secured by US owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett last week will saddle the club with massive interest payments of up to £30m a year.
Now Rogan Taylor, who is leading the three-strong group behind the buy-out, has said enough is enough.
They are proposing a Barcelona-style, “member-share” scheme – full details of which will be revealed at a press conference at the School of Management at the University of Liverpool in Myrtle Street at 5pm tonight.
“No-one who was on the Kop when we played Aston Villa last Monday night could have mistaken how deeply disturbed everyone was at the turn of events, and the feeling that there was something very wrong in this,” said Mr Taylor, who is a Kop season ticket-holder of 40 years’ standing and a director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool.
“The time is right to offer a different solution to the rising concerns that football fans have about the patterns of ownership developing at our major football clubs.
“Thousands of Liverpool fans have already demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. Large amounts of debt often devolves onto clubs newly purchased, but the fans know that in the end, it will be they themselves who will have to pay it off through increased ticket prices and other schemes.
“So why not simply buy the club yourselves?
“I thought about approaching David Moores about this plan about two years ago, but then everybody was sitting on the fence about buying the club. But the timing has got to be right – and now people are angry enough about what’s been happening to their club to make things work.”
Joining him in the initial launch scheme are two “big hitters” in the concept of giving the club back to the fans.
Phil French is the former director of communications and public policy at the Premier League. He is now chief executive officer of Supporters Direct, the government-backed organisation promoting democratic supporter ownership and representation.
They have been joined by Kevin Jaquiss, of the law firm Cobbetts, specialists in co-operative and mutual law. Mr Jacquiss is part of the group which developed the Supporters Trust concept and wrote the model constitution which is now used by over 100 Fans’ Trusts in England, Wales and Scotland.
Mr Taylor, who is also founder member and Chairman of the Football Supporters’ Association, launched in Liverpool after the Heysel Stadium Disaster, explained that what many people did not realise was that there were other ways of financing and taking ownership of big clubs.
In Germany and Spain, he said, most top-level football clubs are simply “Not For Sale”. They are owned by many thousands of “member fans”. The Champions League has been won on six occasions in the last 15 years by clubs owned and run in such a way, he added.
“If the situation develops as it is, we’re going to have to buy every home game in advance. So, if you’re going to have the money dragged out of your hands to pay for nothing, you may as well use it to keep control. If you present it as, say, funding a couple of trips to Istanbul, then most fans would say ‘Let’s get in there’.”
Mr Taylor refused to be drawn on more specific details of the scheme until tonight’s press conference.
But John Mackin, editor of Liverpool fanzine Red All Over The Land, who has been privy to the buy-out plan, has been impressed by its scope and detail – it’s just a matter of getting it set up in time.
“This is not a pie-in-the-sky operation that’s been written on the back of a cigarette packet. These guys know what they’re talking about. It’s a very exciting prospect where they will be asking the fans to come together in a Barcelona-style arrangement where the fans essentially own the club on a one fan, one share, one vote basis.”
Neil Blankstone, a director of Blankstone Sington, a stock-broking firm that specialised in buying and selling Liverpool FC shares when it was a public company, said more details were needed before an assessment could be made over whether the scheme could possibly succeed.
The £5,000 that would be required of 100,000 fans would match the price that stockholders were paid per share when Hicks and Gillett took over.
“Before then, prices had been creeping up to around £4,500.”
He said interest in buying Liverpool FC shares had been steady until the buy-out by the Americans.
He said the key factors in the valuation of the club were the new financing deal, money from TV deals, and a possible new stadium.
“The key question is whether it would be enough to tempt the American owners to sell. The second is if it’s 100,000 at £5,000, would that be feasible and possible to bring about?
“These are questions that hang in the air – so watch this space.”
Other city sources, however, last night stressed that Dubai International Capital (DIC) remained by far the most likely new investor in LFC, if Tom Hicks, George Gillett or, indeed, both decided the time was right to relinquish their holding.
The Share Liverpool FC Group is looking for 100,000 fans to raise the money to purchase the club from its current American owners and build a new stadium, with an investment of some £5,000 each.
Many Anfield fans are furious that a £350m loans package secured by US owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett last week will saddle the club with massive interest payments of up to £30m a year.
Now Rogan Taylor, who is leading the three-strong group behind the buy-out, has said enough is enough.
They are proposing a Barcelona-style, “member-share” scheme – full details of which will be revealed at a press conference at the School of Management at the University of Liverpool in Myrtle Street at 5pm tonight.
“No-one who was on the Kop when we played Aston Villa last Monday night could have mistaken how deeply disturbed everyone was at the turn of events, and the feeling that there was something very wrong in this,” said Mr Taylor, who is a Kop season ticket-holder of 40 years’ standing and a director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool.
“The time is right to offer a different solution to the rising concerns that football fans have about the patterns of ownership developing at our major football clubs.
“Thousands of Liverpool fans have already demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. Large amounts of debt often devolves onto clubs newly purchased, but the fans know that in the end, it will be they themselves who will have to pay it off through increased ticket prices and other schemes.
“So why not simply buy the club yourselves?
“I thought about approaching David Moores about this plan about two years ago, but then everybody was sitting on the fence about buying the club. But the timing has got to be right – and now people are angry enough about what’s been happening to their club to make things work.”
Joining him in the initial launch scheme are two “big hitters” in the concept of giving the club back to the fans.
Phil French is the former director of communications and public policy at the Premier League. He is now chief executive officer of Supporters Direct, the government-backed organisation promoting democratic supporter ownership and representation.
They have been joined by Kevin Jaquiss, of the law firm Cobbetts, specialists in co-operative and mutual law. Mr Jacquiss is part of the group which developed the Supporters Trust concept and wrote the model constitution which is now used by over 100 Fans’ Trusts in England, Wales and Scotland.
Mr Taylor, who is also founder member and Chairman of the Football Supporters’ Association, launched in Liverpool after the Heysel Stadium Disaster, explained that what many people did not realise was that there were other ways of financing and taking ownership of big clubs.
In Germany and Spain, he said, most top-level football clubs are simply “Not For Sale”. They are owned by many thousands of “member fans”. The Champions League has been won on six occasions in the last 15 years by clubs owned and run in such a way, he added.
“If the situation develops as it is, we’re going to have to buy every home game in advance. So, if you’re going to have the money dragged out of your hands to pay for nothing, you may as well use it to keep control. If you present it as, say, funding a couple of trips to Istanbul, then most fans would say ‘Let’s get in there’.”
Mr Taylor refused to be drawn on more specific details of the scheme until tonight’s press conference.
But John Mackin, editor of Liverpool fanzine Red All Over The Land, who has been privy to the buy-out plan, has been impressed by its scope and detail – it’s just a matter of getting it set up in time.
“This is not a pie-in-the-sky operation that’s been written on the back of a cigarette packet. These guys know what they’re talking about. It’s a very exciting prospect where they will be asking the fans to come together in a Barcelona-style arrangement where the fans essentially own the club on a one fan, one share, one vote basis.”
Neil Blankstone, a director of Blankstone Sington, a stock-broking firm that specialised in buying and selling Liverpool FC shares when it was a public company, said more details were needed before an assessment could be made over whether the scheme could possibly succeed.
The £5,000 that would be required of 100,000 fans would match the price that stockholders were paid per share when Hicks and Gillett took over.
“Before then, prices had been creeping up to around £4,500.”
He said interest in buying Liverpool FC shares had been steady until the buy-out by the Americans.
He said the key factors in the valuation of the club were the new financing deal, money from TV deals, and a possible new stadium.
“The key question is whether it would be enough to tempt the American owners to sell. The second is if it’s 100,000 at £5,000, would that be feasible and possible to bring about?
“These are questions that hang in the air – so watch this space.”
Other city sources, however, last night stressed that Dubai International Capital (DIC) remained by far the most likely new investor in LFC, if Tom Hicks, George Gillett or, indeed, both decided the time was right to relinquish their holding.
Mike Chapple at Liverpool Daily Post