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Fans make Liverpool takeover move
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By Bill Wilson
Business reporter, BBC News
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Liverpool's refinancing includes a sum to buy new players
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Liverpool supporters are to launch an ambitious plan to buy the football club from its current American owners.
US tycoons George Gillett and Tom Hicks recently finalised a £350m refinancing of the club which they bought in 2007.
But the Share Liverpool FC Group is to reveal plans for a buy-out of the club by 100,000 Reds fans around the world.
The model proposed will be a Barcelona
style, "member-share" scheme, aimed at raising £500m to purchase the
club from its US owners and build a new stadium.
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606: DEBATE
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As well as UK-based fans, a website will
be launched to attract interest from Liverpool's supporter base around
the world, particularly in East Asia.
Club refinancing
Those behind the move are football
business lecturer and Liverpool fan Rogan Taylor, former director of
communications at the Premier League Phil French, and lawyer Kevin
Jacquiss - an expert in launching co-operatives.
"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," said
Taylor, who is director of the Football Industry Group at the
University of Liverpool.
Full details of how the fans' group
hopes to buy the club will be revealed later on Thursday, although the
initial figures seem to suggest an investment per supporter of £5,000
each.
Many Liverpool supporters have been unhappy at the recent uncertainty surrounding the refinancing of the club.
After much delay, and reports that either
one or both of the owners was willing to sell a stake to Dubai's DIC, a
refinancing deal was signed last week with the Royal Bank of Scotland
and US bank Wachovia.
Hicks confirmed to the BBC last week that of the £350m refinancing package, £105m of that will be debt tied to the club.
Of that total, £45m will be used for
future player transfers and to meet the club's working capital needs,
and the remaining £60m is thought to be free for start-up money for a
new Liverpool stadium.
However, some supporters are unhappy
about debt being placed on to the club, and there is also a perception
that the owners' support for manager Rafa Benitez has not been as
strong as it might.
Debt burden
"Thousands of Liverpool fans have already demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs," said Taylor.
"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.
All looked rosy when the US duo took over in early 2007
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"In such a case, why not simply buy the club yourselves?"
He said that many fans were unaware that there were other ways of financing and taking ownership of big clubs.
Taylor said that in Germany and Spain most
top-level football clubs were not for sale as they were 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 said.
Barcelona, which won the Champions League in 2006, is owned by its 100,000 fan-members.
Stadium plan
Earlier this month a survey carried out by
the Liverpool Supporters' network showed that 76% of 2,000 fans
questioned said they would "seriously consider reducing their financial
commitment to the club" if the current owners stayed in charge.
When asked to choose between the owners
and the manager as to who had the best interest of the club at heart,
99% backed Benitez.
However, Hicks and Gillett have insisted that they are fully behind Benitez.
They also say the club plans to build the 71,000-seat venue close to Anfield in Stanley Park in time for the 2011-12 season.