LIVERPOOL fans are on the crest of a wave right now. A newly-expanded Main Stand is finally open. We have one of the best managers in world football signed on a long-term contract and he has the Reds playing scintillating stuff, with Jürgen Klopp’s side now second favourite at the bookies to win the Premier League.
Meanwhile, our big-money signing from Southampton (“Oh no, why are we buying Southampton players?!”) is player of the month.
The vibes are good, no?
So why, in a matter of days, have Ian Ayre and John Henry felt it necessary to kill the buzz?
Ayre and Henry, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, and seemingly without pressure or provocation, are pouring cold water on the likelihood of the Anfield Road end being renovated.
A good time for bad news?
On the face of it what John Henry says makes sense. “I don’t know if there is a next step because ticket prices are an issue in England,” the Principal Owner of Liverpool FC said. “That may foreclose further expansion. We’ll have to see.”
Basic economics, isn’t it? (It’s not by the way — the economics of football obey almost none of the traditional principles of basic economics. Feel free to quote that when people ask that question.)
Several major factors have emerged since the original outline planning permission was obtained to grow the stand’s capacity from 9,074 to 13,860.
Firstly, away tickets in the Premier League have been capped at £30. Previously, away supporters at Anfield were charged premium prices, which now has been limited. So let’s say 25 per cent of the stand’s capacity offers a significantly lower return than the original plan.
Second, is the successful walk-out protest to challenge an extra £2m in ticketing revenue being added through price increases.
The much-vaunted £77 tickets were the focus of the attention but large swathes of the ground were seeing significant price increases. All in the name of adding £2m to the coffers at a time when the Premier League is awash with TV money and Liverpool FC is breaking new ground with eye-watering commercial sponsorship deals.
The club capped season tickets and de-categorised tickets with a maximum ticket price set at £59 rather than £77. The club also introduced some local sales and a £9 restricted view ticket.
Thirdly, the Main Stand is open and while in general it has been well received, the corporate packages on offer have not sold out.
Unconfirmed suggestions posted on the internet claim the packages do not offer good value and allege the club has resorted to sending employees in to sit in the hospitality areas.
All of this makes the commercial case for expanding further much more difficult to contemplate, right? Well, it depends on how fast you want to see a return.
The Main Stand expansion has been funded by an interest-free loan from the owners to the club. Estimates suggest that the club will benefit from a £25m increase in earnings from the expansion. So with an £115m publicly-stated build cost, the loan will have been repaid comfortably within five years and beyond that the club benefits from a higher sales base.
When Liverpool FC increased the capacity of the Main Stand by 8,500 seats, only 3,100 were non-corporate sales — 2,000 went to the closed season-ticket waiting list and 1,100 was made available to those who have paid for the club’s membership scheme.
The same level of corporate offer is not in the plans for the Anfield Road stand, with the vast majority of the additional seats catering for general admission supporters and season ticket holders. Which makes the payback much longer than five years.
Do the stand-offish comments from both Ayre and Henry tell us this is something FSG do not have an appetite for?
Before the club’s back-track after the strong support for the walk-out in the Sunderland game, Ian Ayre had made an appearance in front of the media on dress-down Friday. He said those protesting should “be careful what they wish for”.
Perhaps his cryptic prophecy is coming true?
Liverpool FC has been granted outline planning permission (which expires in September next year) for an increase of 4,800 seats in the Anfield Road end. The designs had little in the way of corporate facility, but the outline drawing indicated some apartments to be built in to the stand.
So the answer in a nutshell appears to be: It doesn’t make enough money quickly enough.
Perhaps then, the arguments for expansion have to be made in other ways.
Liverpool has an ageing fan base in terms of home match attendance. At 42, I look around the ground and I feel relatively young.
With a closed season-ticket waiting list, and little prospect of getting one if you are one of the 26-28,000 rumoured to be on it, how can the next generation of young people get in the habit of supporting their local team?
In 20 years’ time, if I am still lucky to be going to the game I doubt I will be as vocal as I am now (and I am nowhere near as vocal as I was 20 years ago).
Does a baying youthful crowd make a difference on the pitch? Our manager seems to think so — he says it often enough.
In tight seasons like this year, when every point counts, how many more points could a bumper passionate crowd earn us? Another 10?
If FSG are the right custodians of the club they have to look beyond a five-year cycle when determining the long-term interests of the football club.
Expansion should not just be judged against match-day ticket revenue — although if the additional 4,800 seats in the stand were sold as season tickets at the price I pay that would mean an extra £4.1m in league match-only ticket revenue.
More discussion around John W Henry’s comments re Anfield Road development:
More likely is a mix of general admission and season tickets, plus cup games and of course, potentially, Europe. That is approximately £5.5m — before anyone has bought a hot dog, a cup of tea, a programme, a stadium tour or even an apartment!
If the Anfield Road end costs £70m (versus £115m for Main Stand) FSG are looking at a 12-year payback. Throw in naming rights and some level of corporate provision, and the return on improvement improves further.
There are corporate deals available in the Anfield Road end for sale right now — linked with hotels across the city. Just £300 for the Manchester United if anyone is interested. My numbers have no corporate offer in them.
The other way to fund the expansion is through the capital growth of the club. The club’s worth was recently estimated at £1.2billion and FSG paid close to £300m for it. They are sat on a tidy profit.
Perhaps a share issue could create the liquidity to do the project? Maybe the transfer budget deficit could be redeployed to cover some of the costs? Does a sponsor wants to seize the opportunity to be a fans’ advocate in the way that Virgin have done at Southampton? Maybe help bridge the funding gap under the banner of “enabling the next generation of fans to attend Anfield affordably”?
I am not suggesting any of the above is easy — far from it. But it should be within the might of the club to solve these issues.
We have the sixth (soon to be seventh) largest stadium in the Premier League.
We have 28,000 who have paid to continue to be listed on a closed season-ticket waiting list.
We have over 100,000 active members who pay to have access to ticket sales.
We have an incalculable number of people who have given up on the rigmarole of obtaining tickets to Anfield — as it is, frankly, a ball-ache.
Not increasing the capacity solely due to the speed of commercial return is unpalatable enough but from a company sat on £0.9bn of capital gains earned from supporters, it is reprehensible in my opinion.
Furthermore, in an era where clubs are earning more than ever and they are awash with TV money, the very implication that the expansion (of their asset) has been scuppered by fans protesting against cost increases is provocative and insulting.
So back to my original question: Why now? Everyone is broadly happy with things, so why start talking about this right now? Not under pressure from fans groups, or an inquisitive media, so what…why?
It’s genuinely puzzling. Odd. But there will be a reason. Perhaps the one that jumps out is the right one. I hope, as ever, that I am wrong.
READ: John W Henry On The Stadium Question – A Q&A With The Anfield Wrap in 2012
Scaremongering? Like the govnt, put out controversial figures so when the solution turns up we are supposed to sigh with relief? Flied lice anyone?
Or get their excuses in early…….”Sure yous all protested last year when we increased ticket prices, how we meant to pay for this new stand?”
Uhmmm….the same way you paid for the main stand redevelopment.
Why are they also alluding to the ticket issue last year as a barrier to refurbishment?
£4.1mil a year extra just from league tickets. That doesn’t take into account, domestic cup tickets, European competition tickets, fan spend in the stadium, naming rights to the stand etc etc.
It may take longer than 5yrs to pay it back but they keep telling us they’re in it for the long haul. What’s 8 yrs to pay back loan in order to have significant improvements to the stadia, the clubs value and hopefully on pitch performance due to increased atmos and income to spend on players?
JWH is not stupid. There is a reason, whoever the comments were aimed at knows it. Be they chinese investors, or a conflict with ian ayre due to poor corporate ticket sales and no stand sponsor. There’s a reason. As you say the timing is stupid and I’m sure klopp won’t be too happy.
It strikes me as a classic example of a plutocrat punishing the proles for daring to have a voice. People protesting, and winning, clearly doesn’t gel with his conception of the world and people’s place in it. Also, it’s a preemptive strike against further action taken by fans. Does this presage another price hike?
Here it is. Two years pass, klopp has us winning and anfield is buzzing. Ticket prices go up. Protest happens by those who attend every match. Club asks protesters to kindly sell tickets to those on the season ticket list who’d be thrilled just to get into anfield once. Increase means a r e pays itself in 5 years. Done.
Great article. I could not believe it when I saw the reports about his comments. So negative and so ill timed. To the extent he wanted to lower expectations about new expansion occurring amy time soon, he could have made some generic comment about economic realities dictating future development. Instead, he says something that has a vindictive flavor to it. So unfortunate. Especially because I think they have been decent owners.
I can’t see that FSG made ~900 mill in profit. Not util they have sold, which they have not. Reprehensible…? C’mon. Rather than complain about FSG, maybe they should be thanked from saving us from becoming Leeds?
Hi Tom,
You are right they haven’t sold but they are sat on an asset that has quadrupled in value since they bought it – so they have huge equity.
One can tap in to that equity quite easily – a bit like a homeowner can to build an extension.
I have met John Henry and Tom Werner a couple of days after they bought the club and did thank them in person.
But the fact they bought a club on its knees makes them immune to criticism?
They have openly discussed that they got an incredible deal. They bought in a fire sale.
They have done incredibly well out of owning Liverpool.
Let’s not kid ourselves about ~900m profits. They bought the club for 300m, and PAID OFF DEBTS of around 3-400m which means costs of around 6-700m, they’ve plumped up around 200m+ of interest free and payment free loans (i.e. it’s costing them money to have funded it) and they’ve funded our deficit spending (i.e. losses) prior to FFP’s 3 year maximum loss calc kicking in. Suddenly that 900m “paper” gain is now nearer 200m and is only theoretical gains, not banked gains.
They suddenly make a small profit for the first time since owning the club and we’re all suddenly upset at them for pointing out that financially it’s not going to be easy to get it over the line… It’s pretty shocking and the likes of SOS (and Jay McKenna in particular) should be taking a less militant approach. It seems to me the negativity being generated is from the likes of them, not John Henry.
Great article. I am sure there are myriad of business solutions (few proposed by the authors) that a competent business development team within corporate FSG should be able to explore and exploit.
Our intelligent fan-base won’t buy these lame excuses.
Our fans can’5 let 5 minutes go by without getting into a snit over something or other. Always looking for a fight. Always looking for the negative side of everything. It’s so tiresome.
This is a good article, but what it doesn’t say is that JWH was at Fenway Park when he made the comment, most likely in response to a question that was posed to him. The AP article didn’t say what he was asked, so this is fume over an answer to an unknown question. His answer was probably also taken out of context, and it’s not even known if what he said was reported accurately.
We’d all be a lot better off if we kept focused on funnelling our energy toward supporting the manager and the players instead of always looking to start a fight with the Owners — who have done more for the Club than any of their predecessors in recent history.
Nice new user interface, by the way. Well done.
He was in New York at a conference and you don’t state shit like that publicly unless you are looking to make a point.
Or maybe you should consider the statements minus implicit biases. Taken individually and then collectivized I suppose they can sound somewhat sinister but that’s in blatant opposition to the history of FSG and particularly Henry himself. This is taken from a source dedicated to the business of football, to expect the article/interview to be anything but business sounding is naive. So let’s deal with the tone right there, it’s not written for the average supporter and the language used (ie customers instead of fans) is totally logical from that perspective and directed at a business centric audience. It’s not a particularly good time for an American investor to make decisions about major developments requiring an major injection of liquidity at this moment because a) you idiots haven’t sorted out the Brexit yet and b) us idiots may elect a lunatic. Until these things are actually done and dusted, it’s generally speaking impossible to supply specifics. It’s impossible to make a reasonable estimate in regards to the financial markets right now.
I could go on but I genuinely can’t be arsed at that point. I have been spending a little time re-evaluating my own personal estimate of FSGs valuation of Liverpool FC and am quite satisfied with the salient fact that these are going to be the club’s owners for at least the next decade. It’s pointless to question their “ambition”, it shall be revealed but I don’t think this is Henry upsetting the fan base as opposed to the fan base overreacting with familiar and slightly tired gusto.
#1 get over the idea that FSG is bad or good. Their bottom line is aided by winning trophies and being in Europe, to question their ambition while accusing them of being in it for the money is dichotic. It’s two opposing mindsets that somehow are expected to logically coexist and thus fail to line up. They aren’t going to buy titles but they certainly aren’t going to lose to stick it to the fans. It’s not how successful professional sports franchises work. FSG is a business, draw what conclusions you may but business is predicated upon making business decisions.
#2 we have to get rid of the H&G mentality. Hicks, in particular is known as a historically incompetent owner. It’s Liverpool who feel the most hard done by him but he’s the same guy that spent a quarter of a billion dollars in Arod a decade ago and previously appointed George Bloody Bush as the Ian Ayre of the Texas Rangers. The experience under those two represents a collective trauma for the supporters, but this blinkered distrust has gotten surreal. If the US Government decided hey, we’re loaded let’s buy Liverpool and use it to market our Army’s commercials or whatever we would rightly be appalled but somehow the idea of a an investment vehicle for the Chinese government is God’s gift basket of Champions League glory? That’s a really weird bit of groupthink a bunch of us managed there. Long story short: FSG isn’t the bogeyman and neither is it the archangel Gabriel. It’s a bloody professional sports multinational and nothing more nor less.
#3 FSG are not bad at business. If Liverpool was bought for a snip, good on them, no one else was making an offer. To be conservatively valued at £1b less than 6 years later? Aye, buncha idiots there. They have also proved exceptionally good at PR. It’s rubbish to view the new deal they gave Klopp as anything but and this is far from the only incident. I suggest you look at what Henry and Co did upon hiring Theo Epstein as the GM in Boston because spoiler alert, it looks nearly identical to what they’ve done with Klopp. Find someone who is going to be successful and leave him be.
#4 FSG and Henry in particular are probably significantly less involved in running Liverpool than supporters seem to believe. When John Henry makes a decision about the club…it’s not done lightly. The whole point of having executives is to handle things competently. Henry has numerous multi-billion and million dollar companies under his auspices as primary owner of FSG. He’s not sitting over a map of Stanley Park with a protracter hands filthy with modeling clay. It’s totally ridiculous to draw these arrow straight lines from our worst collective nightmares to the owners without the consideration of deviation. It represents total ignorance of modern corporate structure.
#5 no one believed they’d rebuild the main stand at first, surely that’s worth considering before regurgitating the same arguments.
#6 a stadium share is categorically off the table.
#7 the plan was never for an immediate start on phase 2, the cautious tone was there from the off.
I’m not a FSG loving Yankee with whatever idiotic xenophobic caricature traits have become fashionable recently; you can disagree but that doesn’t change reality. My only point is that we’re reaching a stage where this “cloud” that hangs over the club is overwhelming self imposed. It’s become borderline paranoia.
ItIt’s too much.
Wow! That’s some analysis and cute thinking. I concur.
Much ado about nothing but no harm for JWH to be realistic to fans expectations after the successful new Main Stand and the resultant fervour. Time to get real- ticket prices overall in the stadium will dictate the Anfield Road end and punter power has cooled that prospect as there’s no Corporate seating plans there.
However, if we win the League- we’ll need a massive increase in capacity for years – so who knows, victory coupled with the 6 year JK contract might sway this rebuild necessary anyway. OT up the road rebuilt in the 90’s only after their 26 year hiatus to capitalise on the resultant resurge in global and local support. It can be done, but without a London type population and demand, only victory at the highest levels could secure us consistently sufficient full-seating demand in all games.
It may be football- but business needs the maths to add up beforehand.
I think the plan to add so many corporate seats to the main stand was based on the US sports model and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of (1) who the audience for football is and (2) how far the English are prepared to travel. Maybe FSG imagined that City types would drive 4 hours from London to entertain clients at Anfield but that was never going to happen. Conversely, if they had filled those spaces with regular seats they are presold given the waiting list. Perhaps they are wise to learn these lessons before further development. To blame the campaign for reasonable ticket prices is just crass.
Great article, I had the exact same feeling when I read the quotes. Jurgen is trying to unite the fan base and these comments appear to try to do the opposite. Ian Ayre and John Henry must both know the reaction statements like this would get. Why didn’t they just bat the question away, with answers like we are still evaluating it, or we want to see how the new main stand beds in. God knows they are quiet enough the rest of the time.
One thing it’s done is that it’s buried the Ian Ayre news, maybe he didn’t stand down and was pushed hence the new job in Germany.
Hopefully the quotes will be forgotten and the team carries on playing well on the pitch. After all if the team are winning then then the owners will no doubt look to, how do they say it “sweat the asset”.
Who cares
It’s weird to have a pop at fans when the club is doing reasonably well on the pitch and also when your trying to sell out a new corporate section with no CL footy.
The German ideas to an American must be just bizarre and perhaps 180 degrees in the opposite direction of how they view sports ownership. Ok fair do’s they’ve got some free and £9 tickets going……. if you don’t mind sitting with your back at a 45 degree angle or perhaps your new best friend in front of you is a steel girder.
Brands (sorry to use the word) spends millions and millions trying to figure the stuff out we’re trying to figure out. When Apple brought the iPhone out people were like “Who’s gonna pay £500 for a phone, thats mental.” Now a new version comes out every 6 months, we up cycle all the time and we’re happy to pay the cost of the phone on the never never. All the time Apple refuse to bring out a low cost phone and yet they continue to be one of the most valuable companies on the planet all done in under 10 years. There’s a reason Channel don’t make a £30 handbag & there’s a reason why the likes of Burberry spent a small fortune reinventing their brand after the SE London Millwall Hijack.
So in one corner you’ve got the idea of keeping the costs high so the perception of the brand doesn’t suffer i.e. we don’t deal with the low end of the market we only deal in the top end. At the other end you’ve got the idea of extending the stadia, drop the ticket price & use the value of the brand (sorry) to drive the club on.
I think overall FSG have one eye on the exit door. I think they want to demonstrate to the investors and the market that even without CL they’ve created a sustainable, profitable club for someone else to take on. If you’re in it for 20 -30 years then you’re constantly thinking down the road, if you’re in it for 5-10 then you’re only concerned with whats happening now.
Its a sad state of affairs that clubs are now being owned by sovereign funds. So we may in effect be owned by China, not some bloke or fund, not even an Oligarch but China. I imagine in the USA is lining up a bid for Man U.
Nice new interface, well done
I wonder whether its a bigger issue here. Has John Henry got word that the next domestic TV deal might not be as big as this one was? These discussions will definitely be underway already…only a couple of months into the current 3 year deal. Has he heard that Sky/BT don’t feel a combined 6bn is a price worth paying next time? Dont forget both stated they overpaid considerably this time round. This would mean the main revenue stream is cut, but the cap on away tickets, fan protests etc (all perfectly legitimate) mean that a revenue gap can’t be plugged by raising tickets. That then affects the bottom line ability to pay for a new stand.
Worth thinking about….
I have to agree with the views of Matthew and Ellie above. There is a population of Liverpool fans with an ingrained cynicism or paranoia, that means they seek the negative in every interview or piece of news that is released. This article is in that vein.
Everything Ian Ayre has said has been consistent with previous messages relating to expansion of Anfield. The message has always been cautious and it has always been clear that the development depends on having the right plans and economic model that will make each phase of expansion work.
I would also argue that there is a population of Liverpool fans who defend the clubs actions come what may. FSG did not create the situation where we have generations locked out of the ground. But they have an opportunity that previous custodians did not have – they have astronomical revenue streams and a huge paper profit on their investment. Further expansion beyond the Anfield Road end seems incredibly difficult to achieve. In real terms the Main Stand was the ‘corporate expansion’ but the Anfield Road end was to address some of the access issues for general admission customers and those waiting decades for a season ticket. The club have been consistent on their stance – that does not necessarily mean it is the right thing to do.
My piece is not a hatchet job on the club – I have deliberately tried to express the world how they see it and pose some potential solutions.
The club has a unique set of challenges around access – and I stress the solutions aren’t easy. Especially if you want your money back in 5-6 years time and make that a condition of anything that you do.
We need to be clear though – nobody has explicitly ruled out expansion. Its purely a situation of wait and see how things develop.
There has never been any commitment to a timeline for further expansion the minute the main stand was completed.
We do have huge revenue streams but its a finite amount. It cant be spent on everything. So a bit of patience for now would seem the best approach.
I have anobject ion to the “come what may” classification. I have no particular love for FSG and I have no illusions about the possibility of perfection. What I do possess is enough of an educational background in certain relevant fields of study, analytical skills that are adequate and most importantly, a sense of bloody perspective.
I will admit that I am sometimes colored in myoopinions. It’s a product of both my own insecurities and the fact that for the first five years of experience with being both a Liverpool supporter and social media user the single most common argument against any opinion I expressed was “you’re anAmerican “. Please don’t mistake that as bitter, it’s merely a statement of fact.
It’s important though because it’s built into my love of the club. Xenophobic answers to my questions have engraved into my support an absolute rejection of oversimplification.
I don’t consider this a hatchet job per-se but I do not agree with it. What it is is quite persuasive to people who are already inclined to think a certain way.
I’m not going to get into an argument over emotions and perspective here. But the allegations you’re making in this post, if read academically, are actually individual thesis. It’s impossible for me to take this particular post seriously because TAW, similar to FSG, is imperfect. And while I admire greatly the work you do I feel in this particular case there’s an absolute failure of providing emperical support for, if not all, then certainly more than enough of the positions taken.
YNWA
This is just another indication that perhaps their work is done here. I’m a bit torn about how much credit we give them, because at the end of the day regardless of how close to administration we were, the football club represented a fantastic opportunity to purchase a world wide brand at a rock bottom price. The fact that in the heads of supporters they ‘saved us’ is just a consequence of a sound business move.
They have essentially bought a run down house, renovated the interior added a conservatory and made the maintenance costs a lot more efficient. They new all along that when brought back to its original lustre it would be a sought after commodity.
At 350 million pounds at the time of purchase they could feasibly sell anywhere between 750 – 1 billion pounds over the next two years. I suspect champions league football will signal the end of their tenure.
Has the conservatory got a Bifold door in?
They could simply go bigger on the Anny Road, and fill the seats from the waiting list. I’m sure there are economies of scale to toy around with, given the sheer size of the waiting list – whatever redevelopment we undertake, the list will not be eradicated.
To be fair to IA his comments are what you would expect. “We’ll do it at the right time.” JH’s comments are “Nah, its off the table now because you can’t jack the prices up”
This for me is divide and conquer from the owners to the fans. Some fans happy some not. If the planning (option) runs out in a year then the finance already needs to be place, contractors need to be lined up and final planning applications need already be submitted. Planning takes bloody ages and if all of that is not already in place then I’d expect the notice to expire. Once that notice does expire then it hits the news. Theres only internet geeks looking at expiry dates on City Council planning portals. ;-)
This is club putting out a mattress so when the news of the planning notice does hit it’s a soft landing.
After 20 years of being a slum landlord the current owners have moved the club forward & thats to be commended given the position we were in with G&H. What its not is the finished article we were all expecting or hoping for. Given over 25 years of not wining the league I’m kind of used to that.
To not build it is for me is being over cautious and it’s with one eye on the exit door. I never bought into this whole reinventing football / moneyball philosophy, winning through the backdoor, (Leicester did us no favours with that last year) permanent austerity, breaking even in the transfer market. The club has tripped in value through basically TV money and we’re 7th every year with the odd cup run.
If you want a channel handbag there £3K if you want a fake there £30 down the market. Lets get the Chinese in.
Could it just be a little dig back at the fans for calling him a “greedy bastard”? Or am I a little naiive thinking that?
At the end of the day FSG/John Henry are not fans, they are businessmen. If the numbers don’t stack up then it won’t happen….end of. What we, as fans, would like counts for nil.
Excellent article.
This is my first post and will be last because I can’t be bothered arguing with the FSG public relations team who immediately appear when anything negative is said about FSG!
I just want to make the following points:
1. The club have overestimated demand for hospitality tickets. There are at least 1,000 hospitality season tickets that haven’t been sold – this is despite the club claiming they have sold them. I had 3 calls from LFC before the season started saying ‘we are down to our last 5 seats in the dugout, they will sell out today’…that was clearly lies. We now have 7,000 corporate tickets and whilst Utd have 8,500 Liverpool is still a far more working class club / city and we will never sell hospitality on the same scale. The prices being charged are exorbitant (e.g. £922.80 for a ticket against Man Utd) and are in line with Arsenal. Even the players have refused to buy boxes off the club! In addition the terms are ridiculous with people required to sign up for 7 years.
2. The attendance against Leicester (check the BBC website) was 51,232. I was sat in the upper centenary and there were huge numbers of empty seats opposite in the middle tier. Again against Hull the ground was far from full. I find it obscene that there are in the region of 20,000 desperate fans on the waiting list who could be at the game but instead we have empty seats – expect to see attendances well below the 54,074 for most games. Instead of reducing prices and selling these tickets to normal fans FSG are happy to see empty seats. In fact the club are actually selling these packages at reduced rates but are giving them to touts (I think they are called ‘ticket agencies’) across the country who then try to push them to their clients. FSG are praying that we mount a serious challenge for the title which will increase demand and see more hospitality sell – if we can gain champions league football as well then even more hospitality will sell next season as these games are included in the price.
3. All this means that at the moment there is no chance of the ARE being expanded as there are two clear problems – contrary to posts on Skyscrapercity etc there is zero demand for additional hospitality and creating more general admission seats will actually reduce demand for these tickets and extend the time frame for the main stand being paid off. FSG would much rather keep demand for tickets sky high so that they can force people to buy their overpriced hospitality.
4. Of course FSG took a chance buying the club as at the time we were in financial disarray but they have made in the region of £700m on the value of the club since buying and have given absolutely nothing back. We need to remember that FSG have not paid for the main stand – they have lent the money to the club and we (the fans ultimately) are saddled with that and have to pay it back. Considering the profit FSG have made on their investment (the people who say FSG have never taken a penny are missing the point…they want capital gain when they sell as it is far more tax efficient) I find it incredible that they would refuse to fund a £60m project…let’s put that into perspective, Man Utd paid £95m for one player! £60m is absolute peanuts given the current TV revenue but clearly FSG have no interest in the long term future of the club (as the article above states above the payback may take 12 years but where else can you find and investment like that with interest rates at zero everywhere?) and have no desire to get real fans into the ground. In my opinion the club is unfortunately in the wrong hands once again – it is no coincidence that it is Yanks in charge again who have absolutely zero affinity to club and are only interested in fast profits. Liverpool FC has massive potential and could compete with clubs like Real Madrid with the right investment in players (I still cannot believe we actually made a profit in the transfer window) and stadium. Whilst FSG have steadied the ship they do not have the ambition and long term vision that we need and it is time for them to move on. I think they will once their magic £1bn valuation is met – if not then Liverpool will remain Europe’s number 1 selling club and we will never compete with the likes of Manchester City – let’s not forget we have won 1 poxy Carling cup in the last ten years! We will also see older and older ‘fans’ at the game and more local kids being alienated and priced out….my under 16 season ticket was £50 in 1989 and we were champions then!