Liverpool supporters want to buy…Liverpool
[Updates: scroll down for live updates and the Share Liverpool FC FAQ.]
100,000 fans buying a membership share at £5,000 each. That’s what it’ll take — at a minimum — for Liverpool fans to raise the money needed to buy back control of their own destiny (presuming they can convince Tom Hicks and George Gillett to sell, that is).
The people behind this audacious effort, the Share Liverpool FC Group, are serious and knowledgeable: they include Rogan Taylor, an academic at the University of Liverpool who heads the Football Industries Group and is Chairman of the Football Supporters’ Association, and Phil French, a former director of communications at the Premier League and now chief executive officer of Supporters Direct.
Taylor explained why the group had finally made their move — many have been wondering when a supporters’ group would “step up” and attempt to assert their voice at Anfield.
“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 current 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.”
It’s something of a shame this wasn’t attempted earlier, as the amount of money now needed to buy a top club makes this is a very challenging scheme. Member clubs that work at the highest level, such as Barcelona, were obviously formed when the investment didn’t take a large chunk of your mortgage to buy your share.
Can they pull it off now, then? What do you think of the idea?
Updates: More details, including a Share Liverpool FC website, are expected to be unveiled today at a press conference and at www.shareliverpoolfc.com (it will go live at 5pm GMT). We will add links as they appear. The Liverpool Echo is probably also a good place to check for updates.
Reaction: Bloomberg notes that a previous effort at Manchester United failed: “A similar share-purchase plan by Manchester United fans failed to prevent the 790 million-pound takeover of the club by U.S. billionaire Malcolm Glazer in 2005, even after Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan’s largest securities firm, offered Shareholders United a 100 million-pound loan.”
Who Ate All The Pies thinks Liverpool fans are “having a laugh” and that “this is communism at its most hare-brained.” Quite how raising a half a billion dollars in capital has anything to do with communism, I’m not sure.
Anfield Road says that “Early responses to the idea from supporters have been unsurprisingly very positive.” Management Today concurs that this is a sensible idea.
Similary, The Social Business says “Share Liverpool FC could offer us a real chance to put ownership of football clubs back into the hands of fans – and for football to be run once again for the social benefit of the many, not the financial gain of the few.”
And Reuters Soccer Blog thinks an idea that old socialist Bill Shankly would approve of — maybe it is communism, after all.
My view? Having considered it overnight, at the very least I hope this gets off the ground. Barcelona and Real Madrid are run this way; sure, it hasn’t always been peaches and cream there, if you look at the debt problems they’ve gotten into in the past. The fans-members appointing the president can lead to rather rash promises to appease the supporters. But at the end of the day, they aren’t at risk of being bought out and transformed into a money-making machine for the profit of owners who have no connection to the club. We’ve argued here before about why leveraged buy-outs are bad for football, and it’s good to see some resistance from the Liverpool fans.
It could also be a good lesson for fans of less expensive clubs that are in danger of being taken over.
Keep your thoughts coming, and post any relevant links in the comments (occasionally these might get stuck in the spam filter, but I’ll approve them quickly).
Update 2: The Share Liverpool FC has crashed under the strain, so I’m going to paste their full FAQ here for now:
Isn’t this a pipe dream? You’ve no chance have you?
It’s no pipe dream; its do-able. Liverpool Football Club has millions of fans across the world. Most of them will have been worrying about what has been happening to our Club lately. And they’ll be realising that life as a Liverpool fan could get much more expensive.
There may be no plans yet, but ticket prices may have to be steeply hiked in years to come to help repay debts. We’ve seen what’s happened already to season ticket holders at Man Utd. You have to commit IN ADVANCE to buy all home Cup games – without even knowing how many games that will be! It includes all League cup; FA and Champs League home games…. Say ten in total on average. That’s an extra £400 – £500 to add to the price of your season ticket at Old Trafford.
What will happen at Liverpool FC when the debts bite (and we have seen more and more debt secured on the Club’s equity)? There is around £180m of debt secured in Kop Holdings Ltd. and no answer to the question: Who will repay it when it falls due in a few years time? Our guess is that fans will bare the brunt in the end, not just in Liverpool but all round the world as the Club ‘sweats’ every asset.
So instead of us paying off the millionaire owners’ debts, why don’t we just buy it ourselves instead? Why would anyone want to pay off someone else’s debts?
Are you really going to get 100,000 people to sign up in this short a space of time?
We took nearly 50,000 fans to Istanbul – Athens too. In reality, it cost most of us between £1,000 and £2,000 to make the trip; more if we took our partners & kids along. Liverpool fans have always turned out when the Club needed them. They find the money somehow, even at short notice. And remember, there are literally millions of us round the world who really care about LFC.
Yes, but £5,000 is a lot of money. Won’t many Liverpool fans be effectively priced out of something they’d love to take part in?
Take your point. We don’t want to see any Liverpool fan excluded. We will seek to provide opportunities for groups of fans to purchase one ‘member share’ (carrying one vote) between them, providing they can nominate one individual to represent them.
Why shouldn’t I just wait and see what happens, without putting up any money?
You could miss out badly. The list will close. Also we will propose giving the first 20,000 people to respond special staus and possibly enhanced advantages for ticket purchase. Those who commit first deserve some reward for their enthusiasm.
Modern sports clubs can’t be run like this, can they?
Why not? Many people know that Barcelona and Real Madrid are owned by their fans. So are German clubs, apart from Bayer Leverkusen. In fact, teams owned by their fans like this have won the European Cup 6 times since it became the Champions League in 1992. Even in USA, the NFL Green Bay Packers are run by a not-for-profit company; they’ve won the Superbowl 3 times despite having by far the smallest population of any NFL team.
That’s fine, but in Britain, especially if you need a new stadium, you need a sugar-daddy. That’s the reality, isn’t it?
No. Look at Arsenal. They’ve no sugar-daddy. The club costed up its plans, secured loans and convinced people to lend to them at a fixed-rate. The Banks trust the club’s finances will be well-run and that fans will continue to watch the club.
If we could show how much fans of this club care, and how they’re prepared to back their faith with hard cash, then everything changes. We don’t need a sugar daddy – we ARE the sugar daddy – because most of the money comes from us in the end anyway.
How do we get investment in the future or cash to buy players?If we have a well run, debt free Club to start with, there will be money to buy players (how much do you think is spent servicing the Club’s debts?). Also the elected Board may wish to raise money (as any business must sometimes). At Barca, very rich individuals stand for election with promises of further investment. But it doesn’t mean they ‘own’ any part of Club.
But surely this way of running things ‘mutually’ belongs to the past?The Co-operative group, with shops, a bank, insurance and undertakers is run like this. It’s
got a turnover of £8 billion a year, and buries 1 in 4 of us! It is also the biggest farmer in the country and the biggest retail co-operative in the world. It‘s owned by over 2 million customers, all owning one share.
What if we don’t get the £500m?Lets say we only get £100m – the equivalent of 20,000 fans signing up. At that point we would ask the 20,000 ‘members’ what they want to do. Some of us might want – as a group (Supporters’ Trust) – to buy a significant portion of the club’s shares. Certainly, at that point, any individual member who wanted the money returned would be entitled to it.
Can I sell my share later on? What if I need the money back in a rush?
The simple answer to the first question is no. There will be no ordinary‘trading’ in individual shares – no profit can be made from selling them – (otherwise the Club would be permanently ‘up for sale’ – just like Man Utd was). However, if a member can find someone who does not already own a member share, then a transfer at the original price may be arranged through the elected Board.
Nobody will be asked to part with a penny until a detailed Constitution is presented in which all necessary details are made plain.
How do we know we’ve hit the target?We will have a partner Bank where the monies will be kept until we reach the target. We will ask the two Bishops of Liverpool to act as verifiers for us – they’ll see the bank accounts, have access to all the books and be able to speak to the bank to certify that it’s all there. We will also ask the Liverpool City Council Treasurer to act as a scrutineer.
So, if we don’t make the targets and we all take our money back, what about the interest the money has earned?
We’ll donate it to a Charity of your choice, less any deductions for verifiable expenses incurred in running the ‘Share Liverpool FC’ operation (website server charges; legal costs to draw
up a Constitution etc.).What will we get to vote on?
Members will elect the Board of Directors for Liverpool FC, for a term to be decided by you. (Barcelona elect their President every four years.) After an Election, just like the Government, the Board will have executive control of the Club, but they may want an elected ‘Fans’ Council’ to advise them. The Board will know that – in a few years time – they will be judged on their performance by the owners – YOU.
Will we get a vote on the team or the manager?No. The elected Board has executive responsibility for running the Club.
Will members be guaranteed a ticket if they want one?
With 100,000 members? You’re kidding!
Has anyone ever done this in UK before?
No, though there have been many formations of ‘Supporters’ Trusts’ at professional clubs in the past decade– and three Football League Clubs are run by a majority shareholder Supporters’ Trust. Liverpool would be the pioneers in completing a ‘members’ buy-out.
What we propose would probably start a ‘revolution’ in Club ownership structures in UK. But then, Liverpool fans have often been at the vanguard of changing the culture of football.
Rogan Taylor, live on BBC Radio Liverpool right now:
“Liverpool fans have got an amazing way of raising money when they need it…What you get for your 5k is ownership of Liverpool FC, no-one can ever own more of it, forever.”
“We’re simply testing the waters. We’re not asking for money right now. We’re asking for indication right now. Once we get a feeling for that, we’ll then go forward.”
“One member, one vote. You will have the right to elect the Board of Directors.”
“A debt-free club would be something we haven’t had for decades…We wouldn’t have to pay interest, that’s a pretty significant pot to start with. There is no greater gift we could give to our club.”
“I’ve had calls from all over the world, from the chairman of the Chicago branch of Liverpool FC. We will have the opportunity for group ownership, even a pub could buy a share.”
“It is do-able. There are enough of us.”
Photo credit: nomad831
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Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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33 Comments
Trackbacks
- Would you pay 5,000 pounds for a share in Liverpool? - Reuters Soccer Blog
- Pitch Invasion » Lead Story » The Future of Liverpool
- Liverpool Fans Revamp Buyout Bid | Pitch Invasion
I would be interested to read into the detail of the proposed business model.
£5,000 is not a small investment, but it is hardly huge. I reckon they would easily find 100,000 die hard Liverpool fans willing to become part of the club for £5,000. I imagine they could probably triple that number.
So it could be a case of the highest bidders get in, which would be a shame. I hope it is a lottery or something similar? I wonder of they do it at Barca?
I will be testing the water with the Missus tonight ….
der Kaiser, do let us know how it goes with the Missus.
It’s really hard to say how this will go down in general. Thousands of local Liverpool fans already pay thousands on European trips each year — and overseas, this is a unique opportunity for a large fanbase to really be involved and prove their commitment.
On the other hand, 10 grand is a shit load of money, and spouses everywhere might not look on this as such a wise investment.
“…and overseas, this is a unique opportunity for a large fanbase to really be involved and prove their commitment.” I understand it is not what your club can do for you but what you can do for your club, but for 10,000 club better show commitment and appreciation to fans. Looking forward to that proposed business model.
I was planning to copy/pasted info from Barcelona’s site to save everybody some time, but they have too much stuff for all the members.
Price:
Carnet aleví Aleví (0-5 anys) 36 €
Carnet infantil Infantil (6-14 anys) 73 €
Carnet senior Sénior (+15 anys) 150 €
Advantages and services:
http://www.fcbarcelona.com/web/english/socis/avantatges/viu.html
Voice and vote
http://www.fcbarcelona.com/web/english/socis/avantatges/veu_i_vot.html
Plus
Members have the right to buy before
Members have exceptional possibilities for enjoying games at the Camp Nou. From the start of the season, September 3, they can purchase tickets for any La Liga games played at home, while they only go on general sale to the public only one month before each match through the web and 15 days before through the other channels.
And in games in other competitions, our members always have priority in purchasing tickets.
Discounts for members
The discount for members has been simplified this season. For all games during the season, apart from the game with Real Madrid and possible games in the final stages of the Spanish Cup and Champions League, members can enjoy a discount of 20%, which can mean up to 25€ on the cost of some tickets. And in some cases the promotions are even greater!
Exceptional conditions for some matches
La Liga game FCB – Real Madrid: Member discount 5%.
Welcome to the state of FCB, i’m very impressed.
Found this old but still interesting article from the guardian http://football.guardian.co.uk/continentalfootball/story/0,,1671045,00.html
Interesting article in the Guardian. If Barca and Real Madrid can be owned by its fans then why not Liverpool. If things are allowed to continue as they are, the club might not even qualify for the UEFA Cup never mind Champions Lge. The Americans have lost the fans and the team (don’t think they ever had them in the first place). £5000 a sound investment for any Liverpool fan.
From where I sit, it is certainly possible in theory, but much more difficult in practice.
The two threshold questions are:
1) are there 100,000 Liverpool supporters willing to shell out 5,000 quid in cash (plus a smaller yearly subscription), with very little chance of any medium-term return (or any return at all)?
2) if there are, are they willing to hand over management of the club to professionals, or will they expect that their “investment” will give them the right to play Championship Manager with England’s historically most successful football club?
Shareholders United’s failure to raise anywhere approaching that amount of money in the wake of the Glazer takeover of Man Utd (at a time when supporter dissatisfaction was almost certainly higher than it currently is at Anfield) makes me rather sceptical about the first point, just as the My Football Club experience makes me question the second.
So here’s my question and yes there are tons of die hard Liverpool supporters in South Africa dying to find out how to help and who to contact. So if anyone can assist please do…
Shareholders United / MUST were in position to be offered 400M by a respect investment bank. Given the cost of MUFC, that wasn’t enough.
i would be willing to pay
£5k is not a small investment, but my heart would be willing to invest at that level. However, my head is telling me that if the speculation around the finances, ownership and team does not settle down soon that investment will go down the pan, as not qualifying for the CL will leave a massive dent in finances !!!
The idea that art least a hundred thousand liverpool supporters would be in a position to pay a minimum of five thousand pounds in order to gain control of their club is pretty far-fetched, if not impossible.
A more rational idea would be for a wealthy local – or at least British-based – businessman to fork out the vast majority of the sum needed in order to lead a takeover bid and then the further monies needed to secure a takeover could be far more easily met by Liverpool supporters.
What is surprising is that when Hicks and Gillett took charge at Anfield, I seem to remember the vast majority of supporters were all for the takeover.
Thank you Tom, very interesting discussion on BBC RADIO MERSEYSIDE. I’m very surprised that England with all it’s football innovations in all departments never had anything like this before. This should be very interesting, they have few very smart people behind this process.
I think its time has come. I’ve been thinking about this same proposition in terms of an MLS team. Teams should be owned by the fans. One of the problems that Barcelona and Madrid have is that they vote directly for a president who then forms a board, which causes all sorts of instability. A much better way is the way the Green Bay Packers (and it looks like what Liverpool is proposing) in that a board is elected who in turn selects the group who is going to run the team. What is beautiful about this too, is each year you renew your membership (maybe @ $100/member) which brings in additional revenue stream. Fans literally have ownership in the team, which makes it more stable, and any profits can go back into the community..
I am not a Liverpool supporter by any means. That aside, I really do think American ownership of English teams (when run the way they have been with Man U and Liv’pool) who have no concept of football culture is a terrible thing for the sport. I genuinely wish the best of luck to them and hope they can pull it off. However, one extremely important question seems to be overlooked in this situation: If they indeed can pool the money, will the owners sell? I can’t think of a more heartbreaking thing than to amass that amount of cash to own your team only to have the people you hate more than anyone at the present moment, and who are standing in the way of your dream, turn to you and say “Not for sale.”
The thing is though Timoteo, how on Earth are Liverpool fans going to generate the amount of money needed for a takeover? Merseyside may have a few millionaires flaunting there wealth up North but surely there are not enough Liverpool fans around willing to part company with enough money to generate five hundred million pounds?
This has nothing to do with soccer but a very interesting story of fans selling team to a few owners because the elected board was unable to run the team and put them in the horrible financial state, you can find few torrent of this online South Sydney Story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMvomJJVHJY
A great idea!! i am a liverpool fan of some 55 years standing and have been horrified by the situation we find ourselves in although i did not feel any undue concern at the recent takeover situation.
I will certainly invest in the club despite the fact that I live in Australia and cannot possibly watch my “beloved reds” play other than on TV, but to pass down my shareholding to my grandchildren and their “issue” is one of the greatest things that i can possibly do, YNWA!!
i support the idea.
i’ll buy my share when time is to come.
you will never walk alone
ofir gryman, Israel
We can’t let the greatest club in History go down because of 2 Americans. Don’t let them spoil Liverpool FC. We need to stand together and there are many Die hard Supporters in South Africa. You will never walk alone.
Fido Die Hard Liverpool Supporter South Africa.
have tried, to several days, to register my interest….site will not accept my registration.
Could anyone pls enlighten me?
Some numbers for you:
The Google analytic stats reveal that, between Friday, 1st Feb and Monday, 4th: Just under 50,000 unique visits to the site from 149 countries, The four biggest countries of origin were: UK (25,177); Norway (6,138); USA (3,071) and Ireland (2,053), ‘Count me in’ responses: 11,892, ‘Great idea – need more information’ responses: 5,394, ‘Great idea – but I can’t afford the £5,0000 responses: 7,930, Only 128 fans indicated: ‘You’ve got no chance’.
£5,000 is not a small investment
Being an ‘old school’ died in the wool,cast in stone ‘Where the Boys from the Kop’ fan from the the Second Divsion,to the First Divsion to Premier League Masters and beyond what can I say. I’m speechless and I’m also a realist……..I have been pondering over this dilema for the past week and have given it plenty of thought and discussed it at great length with my friends some being quite knowledgabile in the area of corporate finance and commerce. We have all concluded that it is achiveable.I for one and my friends would not hesitate to invest in this venture, but await to see more detailed documention for this quest for the Holy Grail.
A note for Mr Parry the ‘buck stops with you’ you have have been responsible for not all but many of the problems caused to Liverpool Football Club and if this venture transpiers you may be looking for other employment.
I’d be willing to pay as a fan, but the sum is just too big for many of us. Hopefully it is still alive and the ones with the cash would be able to raise the amount. Still, it’d need Hicks to want to sell, which he obviously isn’t willing to do so at the moment. Perhaps if they win the title this season, things could change.
Very good written. I’ m loving reading these articles , it is such a rich topic, and a great chance for fans to share their knowledge & passion!
R.Vinello
Liverpool fans can never own the club because they are poor working class yobs who are mostly long-term unemployed and those that work squander their meager earnings in betting shops.
What players do Liverpool need to buy to help them win the premiership? Liverpool fc have not won the league in nearly 20 years now which is not good enough for a Club of their tradition.With massive investment due hopefully the kitty will be avaliable in the summer to buy the best players around.Who do Liverpool need to win the title?
Why everyone calls this communism? Why everyone say this is going to fail? We are running our country like this, ain’t we? We all are members of your country and you elect your representive to run your country. Same way it should work for a soccer club. It is more democratic than a single guy controlling the proceedings (like a dictator). At least this way the club remains in fan’s hand.
merseyside clubs are looking to move stadiums. both are struggling with finances. liverpool have a site at stanley park. everton don’t want to mve to kirkby. solution a shared stadium. i don’t think this would work in any other city in britain but could be a success in liverpool. what do you lot think?
I can understand the desire of football supporters to own their favorite clubs. If we can’t have the shares of our clubs, we can try to make a decoration on some material of furniture with the logo or symbols related to the team. We can put the team’s logo and symbols on sofa, bed, and many other things of furniture. There is a furniture product designer who might be able to get a deal with this project.