Ian Ayre Managing Director

Went from gangster to Oasis tribute act judging by his coat from tonight on ITV.

That's better!

When did we sign Michael Ballack? 

I'll get me coat........

i'm going to actually say that I think Ayre is doing an ok job.  sure he isnt a 'football' guy but he is learning quite fast isnt he?  With FFP coming in... whats he doing with increasing our revenues is critical.  As well.. during the winter transfer window, he got what I would say,, the top 2 guys on BRs list signed.  so imo i think so far so good with Ayre.

He'll need to work with BR and convince FSG to invest more money however.  we'll need resources to build lfc again.

Thank You Mr. Ayre for offical wear.

I am also a biker so I understand a little, but when it comes to dressing for the right occasions it has to be done mate.

So keep it up!

Ian Ayre Meeting The Minutes And Our View

 Last Tuesday Spirit of Shankly met with Ian Ayre, Liverpool FC Managing Director and Phil Dutton, Head of Ticketing and Hospitality, to discuss ticket prices for the 2013/14 season.

The Union maintains that the proposed increases are an insult to long-standing supporters, flying in the face of economic reality and adding further to the 1108% price increase, against a football wide average of 716%, Liverpool supporters have endured since 1989. So much for Lord Justice Taylor's Hillsborough report saying that "it should be possible to plan a price structure which suits the cheapest seats to the pockets of those presently paying to stand." 
 
Having discussed the proposed tiered pricing structure in detail, we believe that the Anfield stadium, as it presently stands, is not suited to the tiered pricing structure that the club has imposed. The Main Stand has obstructed view seats to be charged at tier two prices, with facilities throughout the stand best described as poor. The end blocks in the Paddock are to be priced at tier two in spite of facilities that couldn't even be described as primitive and sightlines that prevent supporters seeing the far corner of the pitch without standing. The lack of legroom in the Lower Centenary Stand has been a source of amusement and aching limbs since the stand was built, as the old Kemlyn Road Stand, in 1963.
 
Given the club's view that supporters in these seats will, at some yet to be determined time in the future, benefit from the stadium redevelopment, the Union has concluded that supporters are being asked to pay in advance for facilities & views of the pitch that still don't exist, the plans for which have not yet seen the light of day.
 
The Union is wholly opposed to any price increases and remains committed to the national campaign for cheaper match tickets. However, as a short-term compromise measure, we proposed that there be no price increases for those purchasing Season Tickets before an initial deadline. While the tone of the response to this proposal does not fill us with hope, we urge the club to give this option serious consideration.
 
When all is said and done, the proposed price increases will hit long-standing supporters hard. And for what is the club willing to risk losing a lifetime of goodwill? An increase in revenue that amounts to approximately 1% of the players' wage bill!
 
Given the relatively insignificant increase in revenue the price rises will generate, weighed against the disproportionate impact the rises will have on supporters' pockets, we can only assume that the club is driven by a wish to change the demographic of its match-going support by pricing an increasing number of long-standing supporters out of the game.
 
While the Union has an excellent working relationship with a number of the club's Supporters' Committee members, we must question the role of the Committee in the price increase process. Ian Ayre believes that the Committee was consulted. If this is correct, what was the view of the Committee? If the Committee was not consulted, is it going to say nothing while being name checked by the club? Two simple questions requiring equally simple answers.
 
Spirit of Shankly remains committed to fighting against rip-off ticket prices and will be looking to step up the protests that have previously focused solely on away matches. If you want an end to this never ending football ticket price bubble join your union and join us in working with supporters from clubs across the country to reclaim our game.


http://www.spiritofshankly.com/news/ian-ayre-meeting-the-minutes-and-our-view

Meeting with LFC Regarding Home Ticket Prices

Present

Spirit Of Shankly – James McKenna, Peter Hooton, Keith Culvin and Peter Furmedge

Liverpool FC – Ian Ayre and Phil Dutton

Notes: The minutes of this meeting have been transcribed from notes made during the meeting and
from a recording of the meeting, to enable a true and accurate record to be kept of what was said.
They have been shared amongst those present prior to release with no indication from any individual
that they are not a true and accurate record of what was said. The minutes, like those of most
lengthy meetings are a paraphrasing of what was discussed by each side. This is the case except
where something is a quote, which appears in quotation marks. Remarks in bold are from Spirit Of
Shankly and the responses are from LFC.

At the start of the meeting, we explained our views on the ticketing price rise. We said that there
had been huge feedback from members in response to the club’s initial release and our subsequent response http://www.spiritofshankly.com/news/liverpool-supporters-union-statement-on-lfc-snew-six-tier-ticket-structure-for-2013-2014. We made it clear that the overwhelming feeling from all  those we had spoken to, and heard from, was anger, with plenty of questions about how and why such a decision on price rises had been arrived at. We had a number of questions to ask LFC based on the feedback from members and here follows the questions we asked:

Why the price rise this year?

The club stated that they have done what they do every year, which is to look at what they want to
achieve financially for the club and what part ticketing plays in that. They stated they never
implemented an increase last year. They were looking for a rise largely in line with inflation, around
3%. They also wanted to look at introducing tiered pricing, something they said they wanted to do
last year but held off. They said that we are one of a very few stadiums in the country that doesn’t
have tiered pricing and as a result other clubs have very low tickets in some areas because of this -
they have moved some up and others have stayed low, more affordable.
With reference to introducing this at Anfield the club said that based on the prices that have gone
down, those that have stayed the same and those that have gone up, averaging it out gives a rise
that is inflationary across the board. They said this allowed them to do two things – implement the
inflationary rise and create the tiered pricing system.

How many seats have actually seen a price reduction?

Around 3,000 seats in the Kop have seen a price reduction while in the Anfield Road around 1500-
2000 seats have had the prices reduced.

Why not just have inflationary rises for all?

The clubs response to this was “because we want to get to the tier”. They expanded on this to say
their ambition is “where there is some level of affordability”. They told us they have done this with
kids’ ticket where they have reduced prices again and that they have done it before for OAPs. The
club said “If you always have everywhere same price, you can’t do that. You either put some up and
not others, or keep everyone the same which is not sustainable as a business. It makes the most
sense as it’s the same model as every other venue in the world, where the best seats in the house
are more expensive.”

It is all very good saying that we are one of a few clubs to not have tiered pricing. However we are
one of a few clubs that hasn’t modernised or redeveloped (the stadium). Look at the history of the
Main Stand.

The club said that in one stand case that is right, but it is something they are working on as well.
They said they have “got to start at some point to create a tier.”

The facilities in the Lower Centenary Stand, the Paddock, the Main Stand, even the Anfield Road
are not great. We have received plenty of emails about this, supporters angry that they are being
asked to pay more when the facilities don’t match the price as they are old, 30 to 40 years old in
some cases. Some said they may have a better view at the side of pitch but not better facilities.

The club said “they don’t dispute that”.

The prices are going to keep rising and they are going to have to keep using the same facilities for
the next few years until a stadium solution, in fact the facilities could get worse.

The club said that they could argue a new stand would cost for example £80 million to build and
improvements would be delivered in the new stand. They said people in that stand would then have
the best facilities.

So they are paying in advance?

The club said they were not saying that. They said they would be making the biggest changes to that
stand so fans would be better off than those in the Kop or in the Centenary Stand.

They are paying more for the worst facilities

“So where do you create the tier if you don’t create it on the basis of the view?”

Our ‘view’ is that any discussion on price rises shouldn’t even happen until you have the new
ground, and facilities, to then charge people for tiered pricing

The club said this was “not the view we have taken”. They said they have got to create the tier
somewhere and the “only obvious way to create it is where it is in every other stadium, that the
most expensive seat is from the half way line outwards.”

Season Ticket Holders in parts of the Centenary Stand, bar a few small changes, have had the same
facilities since 1963. You may say they will be improved but can you understand some people’s
anger?

The club said “Yes we can understand some people’s anger, but at the same time we can never do
anything that pleases everyone, other than nothing.” They also said they “understand for some
people that perhaps it’s a stretch.”
They said that “if this had been started twenty years ago it wouldn’t be an issue, it would have been
the fact that it was always more expensive.”

But 20 years ago, the Main Stand was only a decade old

The club said they were making the point on pricing, not facilities.

But facilities and pricing go hand in hand

The club said they don’t believe this to be true because “you could say that we should put them up
in the Kop because the facilities are better”.

The club took a conscious decision a long time ago to keep the Kop tickets within the price range
of supporters

The club said that “if you make the point about facilities, under tiering, the prices would go up in the
Kop because they have the best facilities.”
They restated that they took the decision that they wanted to create the tier. They agreed that they
“don’t have anywhere near the best facilities in the Main Stand. But at the same time, the only
natural way to create the tier is on the view of the game which is the main reason why you go to the
match”.

If view is the criteria, some people in the Main Stand are paying top price and they have got an
obstructed view

The club said “there is a few because of the posts. But then what do you do. We didn’t just pull this
out of a hat. We looked at do you give him this price, him a little bit less, this one a little bit less than
that. It just doesn’t work.”

But can you understand the way people are looking at this?

I can understand but that is why we are having this discussion

But if you have a block, with an obstructed view for say 60% surely that block should be taken out
of it or given a smaller price rise because they have to stand up to look around or can’t see

The club said that for everyone you do that for, someone else has an issue and they would end up
with about 30 tiers.

Doesn’t that just show that ground is not suitable for tiered pricing at this moment in time?

The club said that there are plenty of other grounds that have tiered pricing and the same issues.

Who have the club consulted with on the prices? What consultation has there been? Would you
withdraw the prices until there has been wider consultation? Supporters feel we have gone from a
price freeze to a completely new approach which has come as a surprise, very early, with a lack of
consultation.

The club said they did consult on this. They said they “spent quite a bit of time speaking to the
Supporters Committee, Bob Humphries in particular because he represents Season Ticket holders.
The club said they have had tiered tickets in the cup for two years now and have been testing and
trialling it and have used that as a basis and have come to this conclusion.
 
You spoke to the Supporters Committee. What mandate do they have to talk to and for everyone?

“We can’t talk to everyone can we?”

But you send surveys out to supporters about how you can increase or improve hospitality
packages?

“Well supporters are never going to vote for a rise in ticket prices are they?”

No they aren’t. On tiered prices in the cups though, and any consultation about that, those prices
were generally discounted so everyone would be in favour of that.

The club said they “tested the tiering to show that people can choose different prices at different
points in the stadium” and that they have done this for a while.
The club said they created the Supporters Committee, because of the point we made that no one
has the mandate to talk for all supporters other than talking to all supporters on every issue which is
not sustainable. They said the Supporters Committee represents the twenty or so different areas of
supporters groups that were voted independently and was created so that the club could take issues
to them, have the conversation and tell them their views. The club said that the Supporters
Committee didn’t decide on the pricing, but what they did was tell them what they were going to do
and how they were going to do it.

If you consulted with the Supporters Committee, what feedback did they give, did it then
influence your decisions and if so how? We know Bob, and know he wouldn’t be agreeing to all
this.

The club said that Bob Humphries is not 100% flying the flag for this, but what he has done over last
three or four months is collate a lot of information, particularly around cup pricing and what the club
were trying to do. They said he went to the club and told them what they need to consider, the type of feedback they were going to have and that the club then took it into consideration. They said that
not everything Bob has said to them has been taken on board but that they did take on board quite
a bit he said and that they have reduced some pricing, looked at kids pricing which Bob has been
talking to them about for a while. They said they have announced that some prices have gone down,
and in the coming weeks once things have settled down they will be making more announcements
including issuing more kids tickets for next year.

Will they be individual tickets so they can go on their own?

The club said “No, that’s something where we are still looking at the options.” They said they knew
this was an issue but this wasn’t just about price, and there were other issues, including loyalty that
could present the club with problems and issues to deal with about demand.

Kids tickets is a big issue, we have said this for a long time. They are future supporters.

The club said they are looking to introduce it and will be announcing details soon.

But do you want to sell adult tickets instead of kid’s tickets because you can make more money?

The club said this was not the case; they need to decide how many they can make available. They
said they could sell more adult tickets if they wanted to but they needed to make a decision about
how many kids’ tickets they can make available. The club said that two years ago they reduced kid’s
ticket prices to £15 last year some cup games were £5. Their next step is to issue more kids tickets.
They admitted there is a financial consideration and that is for them to look how they do that
including things like youth tickets and that they were looking at the options for that with the
Supporters Committee. They said this year they hope they will see the most kids they have at
Premier League games in fifteen years and that last year they had four to five thousand kids in for
cup games.

You said that you have had consultation with Bob and the Supporters Committee – are ticket
prices on the agenda for the next scheduled Supporters Committee meeting?

The club confirmed that the agenda for the next meeting is all about ticketing

But the decision has already been made so you aren’t consulting with them are you? You will be
just telling them what has happened

The club said at the last meeting they decided to focus on just one issue at each meeting and that by
coincidence the next one is ticketing.

But people are going to look at that and think you are going to have a meeting on ticketing and the
club have already decided what that ticketing will be

The club said that the meeting will not just be about ticketing this summer.

But that’s what people are talking about now. You must have had feedback from supporters?

The club said that the feedback they have has has been largely very balanced, they haven’t had a
deluge of people telling them they got it wrong.

We have

The club said that they get feedback and when they get it spectacularly wrong they find out about it.
They said they can “never please everyone” but that they don’t believe they got it wrong and of
course “some people don’t like it” but that there has been consultation.

We have a massive waiting list for Season Tickets. We have been deluged with comments and
feedback, but whether they email you though is another matter

The club said that people do contact them about this.

People may accept this with gritted teeth though because they have no other option. They know
we have a massive Season Ticket waiting list and think if I don’t take mine the club have got
people lined up behind me to take mine off me.

The club said that at the same time as saying this we are nowhere near the most expensive.

We are not disputing that but we are only dealing with Liverpool

The club said they know this but they have to run their “business to compete with our competitors.”
They also said that “the gain to the football club other than creating this tier that gives the platform
to do what we want to moving forward is inflation” and that they know 9% looks high.

Match day income is about 23% of income

“Yes, roughly. But that’s not all tickets.”

So 77% is other income. Match day income was about £45 million, so inflation you will only get a
couple of million pounds more?

“Not even that”

So you get that but at the cost of the goodwill of the fans

The club said that anyone who runs a business will tell you, you can’t just say “oh it’s only another
million and that though it angers fans, they can’t run a business like that. They said they have to
maintain a position in growing the business and revenue in line with competitors and supporters
can’t say we are only worried about LFC because other clubs will leave us behind. They said that they
have to push sponsors every time for a new deal and it may seem like “What’s the point when it is so
emotive?” but that they have to keep in line. They said if everyone in football was charging £300 for
a Season Ticket it wouldn’t be an issue but they’re not.
They said they have to maintain their position, the same as other clubs and that’s why most clubs
are doing the same thing, small increases here and there.

Other clubs, including Manchester United have not increased their prices for the last three seasons

The club said that Manchester United had also had big price rises prior to that and they are ahead of
us as their prices are higher than ours with a season ticket at around £950

Yes but they have a cheap one too, for around £500

The club said that this has been built up over 20 years and you can’t have a cheap one if you don’t
have a tier.
The club said they have to start somewhere. They made the point that someone wrote to them and
said why don’t you just put £20 on everyone’s Season Ticket but they said this doesn’t create the
tier. They said that “At the first juncture of this, someone was always going to have some pain”.

Supporters who are getting the pain are paying the most for the least

The club agreed that yes, the least in terms of facilities.

Even in terms of view, the end blocks of the paddock are £815, they are effectively obstructed
view, you can’t see down the touchline without leaving your seat. There are poor facilities for
ladies toilets, no concourse to speak of and an obstructed view. Nothing about it oozes quality

“Well where do you create the tier?”

You don’t create it there do you, if the ground can’t accommodate a tier? Why have tiered prices
this year changed from last years tiered prices?

The club said when they go through this process, they look at around forty different spreadsheets,
working on it internally. They said based on last year’s tiers it started to get confusing. They said they
could have started with 15 tiers, but everyone would ask what are you doing here. They said they
decided to go really simple, with two tiers in each stand. They said this also gives them opportunity
in the future to move things around and that this is just stage one of what they are looking to do.
They said that if we go with 12/15 tiers straight away, prices would have to have gone up even
higher up in certain areas. They said this was a decision they have taken after the feedback they
have had and having looked at sales patterns and this is the best they have come up with.
They said they will always review it and just because they had something last year, it doesn’t mean it
worked.

It’s an historical problem, not of the current ownerships making, that we have a ground not fit for
purpose. This is now trying to impose a modern ticketing regime, which does make sense in
theory, on facilities that just don’t fit that model. It brings us back to that point of why not start it
when we get a new stadium.

The club said that if they started it when they got a new Main Stand, it wouldn’t improve the
facilities in the Centenary Stand. So unless we rebuild all 3 stands…

People want an explanation and to understand though. If you redevelop the Main Stand you have
some manoeuvrability. If you have a better Main Stand, you have a better facility to have more
tiers.

“People who have gone down aren’t complaining that they have gone down”.

But they aren’t going to, are they?

The club said their point was to create the tier. They said they haven’t changed it to the same for
everyone in the stand. They said it has to come down to the view otherwise everyone would get the
same price rise in that stand.

But the views are not that great because the stand is not built for the modern era.
Are price increases justifiable in the current economic circumstances?

The club said they have seen our leaflets that talk about the 716% rise in ticket prices across football
since 1989. They said if we go from 1989, player’s wages have risen much more and the cost of doing
business has risen by more. They said turnover hasn’t increased at the same rate. They said this was
the same for everyone in football. They said we don’t have the biggest wage bill, or biggest turnover,
and we have improved our turnover but costs can’t keep going up without revenue increasing.

But ticket prices and the rise is negligible?

The club said they can’t leave it out and say that they will just keep them flat because everyone else
who we are trying to compete with will just have increases every now and again and that they have
to keep up.

The economic circumstances are not just the 716% rise. That’s a bigger argument on ticket prices.

The club agreed that there is a bigger debate to have about ticket prices in football in general.

The economic circumstances are how much people have to spend in their back pocket, how much
they have to spend on the match. Let’s be honest, it’s Liverpool Football Club, based in Anfield in
one of the most socially and economically deprived parts of the country. Those season ticket
holders facing a £70 rise are going to be looking at that and having to ask can they afford it. Where
does that leave us, when the price of football is beyond these supporters? There is a feeling this is
intended to change the demographic.

The club said this was nonsense and it was not the case. They said it may appear like that and they
understand why some people say that but it is not the agenda at the club.

Do you think that tickets have remained within reach of supporters as the Taylor report said they
should in 1989?

That’s why we use 1989 as the benchmark, when Taylor said prices in new seated areas should
remain in reach of those who stood on the terraces.
 
Can you honestly say, and it’s not all your doing, that they have?

“It’s not even Liverpool Football Club’s doing, it’s all clubs”

But we can’t pick and choose the bits of the Taylor report we want to listen to and the ticket price
is the part that the whole of football has ignored since. We don’t think you can say tickets have
remained in reach.

The club said they can’t answer it just on behalf of the club and in isolation of football. They said it
keeps coming back to same point, that if we want to have one rule of what we will charge at
Liverpool and a different one for all other Premier League clubs, then we better give up the idea of
competing and we wouldn’t be in the Premier League. They said we wouldn’t compete and that it is
ok saying 3% doesn’t make much difference, but if you haven’t done that for 10 years it’s a big
percentage of revenue.

But 716% is disproportionate

The club said they don’t disagree but that’s a whole of football debate and they can’t have it on
behalf of football. They said it is an interesting debate and one they are interested in because our
point is well made but LFC only play a part in it. We are a long way from being the most expensive.

It is coming to a tipping point where long standing match goers are being priced out and I know
you say that isn’t the clubs intention but that’s how people perceive it to be. There doesn’t seem
to be any give or take, just take. We put our hand out, you take, and you give nothing back. Surely
at some point you have to give back in return for what supporters have given?

The club said they have to be careful not to single people out based on where they come from.

It’s not based on where they come from. It’s based on affordability. We had Out Of Town support
in the 1980s

The club said they have to be careful not to favour anyone and it’s a difficult one to deal with and
how they would do it. Is anyone with a season ticket over a certain amount of time a different price?

You are being slightly disingenuous, these price rises won’t go near to us competing with
Manchester United and Arsenals match day revenue

The club said they play a part in it, and that the 3% rise plays a part in it.

If we get within Manchester United and Arsenal etc on other revenues though, we would be
competing and the 3% would not be the ‘killer blow’.

The club said that they froze it last year and that they have to make a decision on when they
increase revenue and when they keep it flat. They said they can’t just keep it flat each year.

But we are going to be getting even more TV money

The club said so is everyone else and we aren’t going to get as much as everyone else based on
where they finish in the league

We have made our position clear - with the increase in money from TV deals we believe the
increase in commercial revenues should go towards ticket prices and making it more affordable
for supporters. Is this something you would look to do?

The club said it is the same answer as before, that if they are going to compete, it has to be a
football wide discussion.

Does it?

“No it doesn’t have to be, but if we go to our board and we make a decision that we are going to put
money back into ticket pricing and therefore reduce our amount of revenue compared to our
competitors and then reduce the amount of money we invest in the team, then can you represent
every fan and say they are happy with that? We have to make a decision. We are not trying to be
flippant and talk about representing every fan. So we have to make decision and find the right
balance.”

But you are looking at just 1% and 2% against making a big difference in the goodwill of the
support. We are a very long term investment as we are in for life. An example, ticket prices this
year have gone up at a maximum of £1.5 million. Last year on TV deals, we got £54 million. Based
on new money coming in with the new overseas TV deal to be finalised, we would get £79 million
based on last year’s performance. With possible increases in overseas TV deal, we could get
amounts of up to £85million, £88million, £92million and even £98 million. We are talking millions
and millions. Just small percentages of that, a small percentage of the Standard Chartered deal, a
small percentage of the Warrior deal would make a difference. We are for £10 million from TV
deals or £5 million from another deal, we are just asking you to give supporters bits out of them.
Look at what Uli Hoeness at Bayern Munich said, they spend a bit longer in transfer and sponsor
negotiations to give a bit back to supporters. You have never had that conversation with
supporters to say ‘Well if we do make the tiny small sacrifices, and it is relatively small, you are
talking 0.something%, to make it more affordable, is that something we can have as a club ethos.
Our club ethos is being decided by a boardroom not by the people who are then expected to keep
coming. That may be a wider point about the club’s direction but there are ways we feel this could
be done

The club said they don’t think this is the case, but it is something they should maybe look to
consider. They also said it is something they should look to debate at a league level but that it keeps
coming back to the same point, about why they “would do anything vastly different to anyone else
when it could disadvantage us”.

It wouldn’t. If you are looking to grow the club, we got hooked as kids and we are supporters
forever now. If we don’t do that, and enable people to have that lifelong commitment which is the
lifeblood of football, eventually something will give. It’s small percentages here and there for a
lifetime of goodwill. Surely that’s a long term investment for not a lot of money?

The club said that talking about a million pound here or there was an issue when they made a loss
last year

A lot of factors come into that which are beyond control of fans

“Most factors are”

But then we foot the bills?

The club said this was not true, that we “play a part in it” but “don’t foot the bill all the time”. They
said “We are trying to make the business profitable, we are trying to get it where it needs to be, a
break even position because that’s going to be the rules”. They said right now, they believe they
have made the right decision that “makes the business sustainable, it drives it towards a point of
breakeven which it has to get to and it allows us to continue to compete in the transfer market”
They said that is done with increased revenues across football and the Financial Fair Play rules and
cost control measures that are still being debated, and whether ticketing should form part of that is
something they can take to the discussion table. They reiterated that they think the whole thing
about ticketing prices across football and the debate is a good one to have

So the short answer is you would only consider using some sponsor money if everyone else did?

The club said they don’t say “Let’s see how much money we can make out of supporters”. They said
they look at revenues and costs and how they can influence each revenue stream to increase them.
They said they don’t say let’s take a million pounds off shirt sponsors to go to tickets because it is all
in the same pot of money originally.

We appreciate your answers and honesty and if it is a football wide debate, which we are involved
in on a supporter level, we need to keep the dialogue going over the short to medium term to get
it on to the agenda at the Premier League.

The club said they are happy for it to be on the agenda, which is then for the Premier League to
decide on how they deal with it. They said again it is a valid point and nobody wants to see honest
loyal hardworking fans priced out.

That’s what is happening in reality

The club said they don’t disagree with us, just that it is a wider debate and one that the club cannot
fight on its own.

Have corporate prices risen in line with others?

The club said these have not been finalised yet but there was a big increase last year when they had
new services made available.
The club made the point that for a number of years we have had very narrow ticketing bands. They
have set out to want to broaden them and the spread of prices. They said it was unravelling years of
ticketing policy to do this and it was a four to five year plan to create a bigger spread of tickets, so
that if you want to spend more on certain occasions you can and equally you have affordable tickets
for those who can’t.
They said they will look at how they can do this, about what they charge to help fund a spread of
prices.They drew comparisons to the Boston Red Sox who have a similar capacity to us and said that they
have prices right through the whole spectrum. They said they are trying to get to that. They said
there is “pain this year and there might be more pain in the future” but they have to go down that
route to get a spread of prices. It is something they have recognised internally. They said it has got to
happen or it will kill football.
They said that even German football has this spread of prices. They said it is evolution - If kids get
tickets to come on their own, lower prices in some parts, prices staying the same in other parts and
others growing. They feel that having that on a “longer term model, it works, everybody likes it, and
there is something for everyone”. They said that they have to start somewhere and that they
“understand the facility doesn’t match it right now but they can’t wait and wait and wait.”

So you are saying it is short term pain for long term gain. Why have you announced this early?

The club said this was because they have changed their account year which they have already
announced.

Will there be a charge for paying at the window like in previous years?

The club said this year the price will be one price regardless of how you pay, be it online, over the
phone, postal or at the window.

Would it not be possible to give something back to supporters whilst making all these changes,
such as a discount for renewals before a certain date? Other clubs have Early Bird renewals that
are cheaper.

The club said that the problem with a discount is it doesn’t do anything for them and they might as
well have just not put the increase in as it doesn’t achieve anything as everyone would pay prior to a
deadline.

If look at the deadlines, which is always June for Liverpool when everyone expects to pay, and
look at discounts for possible different deadlines?

The club said there would have been no point doing all the work prior to this if they then allowed
people to pay a discounted price.

We know we can’t stand still. We know you understand what we are saying and where we are
coming from and taking it in, but it isn’t affecting anything

The club said they will take it all and think about it. They said they are here to listen and cannot just
say yes we will do this or this.

You listened to the Supporters Committee and didn’t take much notice

The club said this was not true and that they did listen. They said they might not have taken into
account everything that was said but that they listened on kid’s ticket prices and they did change
some of the tiering. They said we may “agree on loads of things but there are plenty of things we
don’t agree on”. They said they will look at whether there are things they can do but cannot make a
commitment and then have to look back and say they can’t then do it.

You say this is about competing in football. Are we accepting the consequence of that is
supporters’ being priced out?

The club said no, they aren’t saying this. They said there were some good points of discussion raised
and the biggest one, the wider issue for supporters, is it needs to go to a higher level because it is
important.

The club said they don’t say “Let’s see how much money we can make out of supporters”. They said
they look at revenues and costs and how they can influence each revenue stream to increase them.

Is that double dutch or simply a contradiction?

Everyone has a tier so we must have one or we'll fall behind! Utter rubbish, while I accept it's probably the way to go to balance things out they shouldn't be pricing according to standards set by others for the standards they provide. This change should have come in when the stadium begins development, then it might have been justifiable but charging someone for a restricted view with poor facilities the same price as someone with a perfect view and good facilities just doesn't wash very well from any perspective.

Poor show FSG and handled in a very poor manner also.

" What time is it " ?

or

" Whats the time Mr Wolf " ?





" 4 O ' Clock " !



(S.O.S. are an embarrasment.  Not in the Spirit of the Great Man.   Having a laugh)

 . This change should have come in when the stadium begins development, then it might have been justifiable but charging someone for a restricted view with poor facilities the same price as someone with a perfect view and good facilities just doesn't wash very well from any perspective.

Poor show FSG and handled in a very poor manner also.

Could this be a shrewd move by FSG to increase ticket prices and so drive attendances down,hey presto we don't need to increase ground capacity.

Liverpool managing director on Fenway Sports Group, Moneyball, more

NEW YORK -- You'd be surprised how often European soccer figures make it to the Big Apple, even during the middle of the club season overseas. Recently one of those visitors was Ian Ayre, the managing director of Liverpool, who was nice enough to meet me at my local coffee shop. He was on his way to speak at an IMG conference in Florida, just one of the many signs that soccer is the most global of sports.

Ayre and I talked about a number of topics, including Liverpool's U.S. owners (the Fenway Sports Group), the pursuit of "Moneyball" in soccer, LFC star Luis Suárez, the refurbishment of Anfield, the club's debt, the future of Financial Fair Play and the Premier League's new U.S. distribution deal with NBC Sports that starts in August. Here's a look at our conversation, edited for length and clarity:

SI.com: You're based in Liverpool, but the club's owners are based in Boston, and they also happen to own the Boston Red Sox baseball team. How does your communication work with the Fenway Sports Group in Boston? How regular is it?

Ayre: The way we operate and manage the business is fantastic. There's a brilliant interface with Fenway Sports Group in general, not just with John [W. Henry] and Tom [Werner] and the ownership group, but also with all the senior executives. I'm on a call with John or Tom at least once a week. They're involved to that extent, and they come visit. Tom's in and out a lot. We have lots of strands feeding in from Liverpool to Fenway and back. Our finance, marketing and media teams are talking constantly.

It's not all through me. I manage the business, and there's a lot of dialog between me and ownership. But the actual day-to-day interaction is going on all the time. We share best practices. If we're looking at a strategy around the distribution on something or what we're doing on our media products, how we might change the format of some of our content, we're able to tap into the resources of the guys at NESN and understand what MLB.com did. Likewise, in Liverpool this is probably the first product FSG invested in that's truly global. So you have a whole set of experience that the team I have at Liverpool can pass back the other way.

SI.com: I've been interested in John W. Henry's own growing fascination with soccer, Liverpool and the Premier League. Are there any details you can provide of his interest level increasing?

Ayre: The thing with John is, if he's going to do something, he wants to be the best he can be at it. He's also not the sort of person who would try to kind of fake having the knowledge of something. So in terms of his football knowledge, he's watching and watching, and not just Liverpool, but everything he can get access to. His wife, Linda, told me he's literally watching hours and hours of soccer. He's a prolific reader of content from all sorts of avenues to get himself well-informed.

But he also asks a lot of questions, asks your view on things. He sends things around to all of us. What do you think of this? He and Tom are both very open in their approach. They'll contact David [Gill] at [Manchester] United and Ivan [Gazidis] at Arsenal. What do you think? That's healthy. Let's a get a rounded view of the sport and how we should be doing things. It's better to have an owner taking a genuine interest and is well-informed, rather than someone who says, I was successful in baseball, so I can do that in soccer. They both put a lot of time into the team and into the game. That bodes well for Liverpool.

SI.com: How does FSG strike a balance between keeping on top of things for both Liverpool and the Red Sox? Both fan bases are extremely passionate, and sometimes you hear both sides saying ownership is spending too much time with the other team.

Ayre: There have been quite a few comments this season because John hasn't been to a game this season. [Note: Henry has since visited Liverpool this week.] Tom's been to quite a few. That's part of them sharing that responsibility. As is always the case, the media then spun that into "John Henry hasn't been to a game and is losing interest." That's nonsense. It's about them finding that balance. In sharing that responsibility, it's not about being at the games. We've got 46,000 people at the games. We don't have to have John there for it to be a success. It's more important that they give equal support to the business. The sharing of that is very fair and balanced, I'd say. We speak every week. We have a management call. We talk through issues. John and Tom are very involved in that. That's the way it should be. Of course, fans don't see that. They just think he hasn't been to Liverpool. But Tom has been to Liverpool, so Red Sox fans are probably saying he doesn't spend much time in Boston. I guess they can't win. But I can say the effort they put in is very balanced.

SI.com: One thing they did with Fenway Park, instead of building a new stadium, they did a lot of smart things around the stadium while refurbishing the stadium itself to increase revenue streams. That seems to be the approach Liverpool decided to take with Anfield. Where are you right now with that plan?

Ayre: We've always said the preference was to stay at Anfield. It's the heart of the football club. I remember the first time John and Tom came to look at Liverpool before they bought it. I was the person showing them around. When we went into Anfield, John said to me, "This is like Fenway. It's the same feeling. Why would we want to build a new stadium?"

In order to extend Anfield, we need to acquire a bunch of privately owned property around the stadium. We're making really good progress with that. We have a meeting coming up in the next few weeks with the city council and ourselves and stakeholders. We said some months back it would take several months to improve that property acquisition situation. We're definitely on target so far. The No. 1 priority is to stay at Anfield, but there are two or three hoops to go through. The first is property acquisition. The second will be planning. And the third will be to build the thing. I would guess our next announcement on it will come sometime in May or June.

SI.com: When the new owners came in, there was talk of a strategy of buying players, and maybe because they were connected to baseball as well, the notion of "Moneyball" came up. Liverpool was the club that was bringing Moneyball to English football. Maybe that was associated also with specific people like Damien Comolli [Liverpool's director of football in 2011 and 2012]. Has there been a shift in transfer-market strategy post-Damien with the word Moneyball not being used as much?

Ayre: I don't think there was ever anyone at Liverpool using the word Moneyball, but plenty of other people were using it. I think the reality is there were two phases to what's happened since the change of ownership. In the first phase, like any major transaction of that type, we talked about the knowledge of soccer, and that takes time. So we probably spent a year with the owners taking a leap of faith to a certain degree of other people telling them what they should be doing. Within that year we then get to a situation where the dust has settled, and people start to see what is and isn't working.

I think the fundamental shift particularly around player acquisitions and disposals was that we took the view that it needs to be more of a science. Your biggest expenditure line can't be the whim of any individual. What we believe, and we continue to follow, is you need many people involved in the process. That doesn't mean somebody else is picking the team for Brendan [Rodgers, the manager]. But Brendan needs to set out with his team of people which positions we want to fill and what the key targets would be for that.

He has a team of people that go out and do an inordinate amount of analysis work to establish who are the best players in that position. It's a combination of things. Despite what people think and read, it's not a whole bunch of guys sitting behind a computer working out who we should buy. It's a combination of old-school scouting and watching players -- and that's Brendan, his assistants, our scouts -- with statistical analysis of players across Europe and the rest of the world. By bringing those two processes together, you get a much more educated view of who you should and shouldn't be buying. And perhaps as fundamentally, how much you should be paying and the structure to those contracts.

I think we've had relatively good success since we deployed that methodology. We're getting better all the time. Just as you think our football is getting better, our transfer activity is getting better. We were very pleased with the most recent window in January with Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge. Hopefully you continue to follow that path. But it's not a Moneyball strategy. It's a combination of skills and people and processes that bring us to what we're trying to achieve.

SI.com: As busy as Brendan Rodgers and his staff are with a punishing game schedule, are you OK with not having a director of football right now?

Ayre: Yeah. I think that director of football role in a lot of cases almost creates as many problems as it solves. Because people try to judge where the power base is with that role. Who's picking the team? Who's deciding which players? What we actually have is probably three or four people who all are involved in that role that all contribute if you like to the output that role would have. We have a head of analysis, a head of recruitment, a first-team manager, myself. All of those people are all inputting into a process that delivers what a director of football would deliver.

SI.com: Luis Suárez has been tremendous this season. I know he's locked in for a while contract wise, but other clubs would be interested in having him. Is that something you would consider in the transfer market if you got a remarkable offer for him?

Ayre: I remember when they bought the team, John made a comment in the media: We don't want to just build a team to win but to keep winning. To do that you have to have a number of world-class players on your team. To play at the highest level in the Premier League and European soccer, you need players like Luis and Steven Gerrard on your team. So the last thing in our mind is selling Luis Suárez. He's not for sale. It's not something we're interested in.

SI.com: There have been recent reports that Liverpool's debt had increased by 22 million pounds. How concerned are you about that?

Ayre: Firstly, those accounts were about 18 months old when we announced them, so it's kind of a historic discussion in that sense. As the senior person in any football club or business, of course you're concerned about debt. But in the grand scheme, our revenues continue to increase. Debt in football clubs is somewhat a moving feast, in the sense that if you buy or sell a player that can swing easily by that sort of number. The most important thing is if the debt is well-managed. If you look at our debt compared to our major competitors, in most cases we're in pretty good health. As a global business, we were the only team in the Deloitte Top 10 money league that doesn't play Champions League football. That tells you something about Liverpool. We have revenue streams that are beyond our football performance right now. As long as we continue to improve our revenue performance and invest well in the team and build the business sustainably, that's our objective.

SI.com: How convinced are you that UEFA will enforce Financial Fair Play?

Ayre: I think it's a real test for them and for [UEFA president Michel] Platini and others. Because they've really nailed their colors to the mast on this. They've been out front talking about the importance of it, about the need for it. If they don't deliver on it, then shame on them, because a lot of people have put a lot of time into it. Most clubs have been trying to manage toward it, particularly over the last two years when the measuring has started. This is a real test for UEFA.

We've all seen some of the deals that have gone on. I know when Manchester City announced their Etihad Stadium sponsorship, and John Henry made a comment: I'd love to see the guys who came in second. Could you tell me what the losing bid was? That's going to be the challenge. It's such an important part of the game. We've been working very hard within the Premier League to adopt our own form of Financial Fair Play so we don't have five or six teams qualifying for Europe that are subject to the rules and then another 15 or so that aren't.

SI.com: NBC will start showing the Premier League games in the U.S. in August. What's your sense of what they're about?

Ayre: They came and presented to all of us. They did two things. One, at the last Premier League shareholders meeting, NBC came and did a presentation to all the clubs, which I was at. It was fantastic. The fact some of the games will be shown on the main network, for me that's more important than the money. In markets where the game is growing, you want eyeballs as much as you want money. It's great for sponsors, great for the game. That will feed the revenue in the long term. NBC also came individually. I hosted some NBC guys at Liverpool at a game. We showed them what matchday is about, what sort of facilities there are. They've done that almost everywhere. It's great to see they're making a very real commitment to it. I think it will transform the exposure of the game in the United States.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20130416/liverpool-ian-ayre/?mobile=no#all

Ayre did an interview with Sports Illustrated in the US. Worth a read.

.

SI.com: Luis Suárez has been tremendous this season. I know he's locked in for a while contract wise, but other clubs would be interested in having him. Is that something you would consider in the transfer market if you got a remarkable offer for him?

Ayre: I remember when they bought the team, John made a comment in the media: We don't want to just build a team to win but to keep winning. To do that you have to have a number of world-class players on your team. To play at the highest level in the Premier League and European soccer, you need players like Luis and Steven Gerrard on your team. So the last thing in our mind is selling Luis Suárez. He's not for sale. It's not something we're interested in.

The last time someone flash 50mil on us, we took it. What could be the difference this time if it happens again? I'm taking your word Mr Ayre and looking forward to the summer transfer window.

The last time someone flash 50mil on us, we took it. What could be the difference this time if it happens again? I'm taking your word Mr Ayre and looking forward to the summer transfer window.

The difference may be that the last time the player wanted to leave and had done for 6 months or more, I'd imagine this time will be the same. If Luis wants to leave and makes it abundantly clear then what's the point in forcing him to play, it didn't work with that torres bloke did it? He basically stood still sulking for 18 months because he didn't feel loved and then moved darn sarf and has sulked since.

The difference this time may be that Luis wants to stay, I'd imagine a lot will depend on aquisitions, if we start buying in mid table supplying dross he may think of moving to better shores. Luis' future at LFC may depend on Brendan, his signings and the clubs ambition.

The difference may be that the last time the player wanted to leave and had done for 6 months or more, I'd imagine this time will be the same. If Luis wants to leave and makes it abundantly clear then what's the point in forcing him to play, it didn't work with that torres bloke did it? He basically stood still sulking for 18 months because he didn't feel loved and then moved darn sarf and has sulked since.

The difference this time may be that Luis wants to stay, I'd imagine a lot will depend on aquisitions, if we start buying in mid table supplying dross he may think of moving to better shores. Luis' future at LFC may depend on Brendan, his signings and the clubs ambition.

Just worried about losing Luis in any case possible. It will have to be the biggest problem-solving for Brendan to do and everything else will have to be temporarily put aside if it ever happens. Luis is more than just our top finisher, Luis is our match-winner.

Luis' future at LFC may depend on Brendan, his signings and the clubs ambition.

More players of Coutinho's caliber then.

Just worried about losing Luis in any case possible. It will have to be the biggest problem-solving for Brendan to do and everything else will have to be temporarily put aside if it ever happens. Luis is more than just our top finisher, Luis is our match-winner.

We are constantly being assured (for what it's worth) that the owners are fully aware of Luis' value to the club and will not jeopardise that situation.
The only concern is the owners apparently undergo a collective lobotomy when financial matters appear on the horizon do a very good Jeckyle and Hyde impersonation.

The difference may be that the last time the player wanted to leave and had done for 6 months or more, I'd imagine this time will be the same. If Luis wants to leave and makes it abundantly clear then what's the point in forcing him to play, it didn't work with that torres bloke did it? He basically stood still sulking for 18 months because he didn't feel loved and then moved darn sarf and has sulked since.

The difference this time may be that Luis wants to stay, I'd imagine a lot will depend on aquisitions, if we start buying in mid table supplying dross he may think of moving to better shores. Luis' future at LFC may depend on Brendan, his signings and the clubs ambition.

I understand what you are saying about Torres sulking for 18 months but looked at his scoring record, I'm actually shocked slightly:

2007/08 - League 24 in 33 - All competitions 33 in 46
2008/09 - League 14 in 24 - All competitions 17 in 38
2009/10 - League 18 in 22 - All competitions 22 in 32
2010/11 - League 9 in 23 - All competitions 9 in 26

It seems for the first 12 of those 18 months he was actually still putting the ball in the back of the net for us on a regular basis. It wasn't until the 6 months before he left that he actually started letting the sulking get to his game.

It has actually come a sad point in football when even when the player continuously says he doesn't want to leave and, the Manager and Managing Director say they do not what to sell him that it could still happen!

Liverpool managing director on Fenway Sports Group, Moneyball, more

NEW YORK -- You'd be surprised how often European soccer figures make it to the Big Apple, even during the middle of the club season overseas. Recently one of those visitors was Ian Ayre, the managing director of Liverpool, who was nice enough to meet me at my local coffee shop. He was on his way to speak at an IMG conference in Florida, just one of the many signs that soccer is the most global of sports.

Ayre and I talked about a number of topics, including Liverpool's U.S. owners (the Fenway Sports Group), the pursuit of "Moneyball" in soccer, LFC star Luis Suárez, the refurbishment of Anfield, the club's debt, the future of Financial Fair Play and the Premier League's new U.S. distribution deal with NBC Sports that starts in August. Here's a look at our conversation, edited for length and clarity:

SI.com: You're based in Liverpool, but the club's owners are based in Boston, and they also happen to own the Boston Red Sox baseball team. How does your communication work with the Fenway Sports Group in Boston? How regular is it?

Ayre: The way we operate and manage the business is fantastic. There's a brilliant interface with Fenway Sports Group in general, not just with John [W. Henry] and Tom [Werner] and the ownership group, but also with all the senior executives. I'm on a call with John or Tom at least once a week. They're involved to that extent, and they come visit. Tom's in and out a lot. We have lots of strands feeding in from Liverpool to Fenway and back. Our finance, marketing and media teams are talking constantly.

It's not all through me. I manage the business, and there's a lot of dialog between me and ownership. But the actual day-to-day interaction is going on all the time. We share best practices. If we're looking at a strategy around the distribution on something or what we're doing on our media products, how we might change the format of some of our content, we're able to tap into the resources of the guys at NESN and understand what MLB.com did. Likewise, in Liverpool this is probably the first product FSG invested in that's truly global. So you have a whole set of experience that the team I have at Liverpool can pass back the other way.

SI.com: I've been interested in John W. Henry's own growing fascination with soccer, Liverpool and the Premier League. Are there any details you can provide of his interest level increasing?

Ayre: The thing with John is, if he's going to do something, he wants to be the best he can be at it. He's also not the sort of person who would try to kind of fake having the knowledge of something. So in terms of his football knowledge, he's watching and watching, and not just Liverpool, but everything he can get access to. His wife, Linda, told me he's literally watching hours and hours of soccer. He's a prolific reader of content from all sorts of avenues to get himself well-informed.

But he also asks a lot of questions, asks your view on things. He sends things around to all of us. What do you think of this? He and Tom are both very open in their approach. They'll contact David [Gill] at [Manchester] United and Ivan [Gazidis] at Arsenal. What do you think? That's healthy. Let's a get a rounded view of the sport and how we should be doing things. It's better to have an owner taking a genuine interest and is well-informed, rather than someone who says, I was successful in baseball, so I can do that in soccer. They both put a lot of time into the team and into the game. That bodes well for Liverpool.

SI.com: How does FSG strike a balance between keeping on top of things for both Liverpool and the Red Sox? Both fan bases are extremely passionate, and sometimes you hear both sides saying ownership is spending too much time with the other team.

Ayre: There have been quite a few comments this season because John hasn't been to a game this season. [Note: Henry has since visited Liverpool this week.] Tom's been to quite a few. That's part of them sharing that responsibility. As is always the case, the media then spun that into "John Henry hasn't been to a game and is losing interest." That's nonsense. It's about them finding that balance. In sharing that responsibility, it's not about being at the games. We've got 46,000 people at the games. We don't have to have John there for it to be a success. It's more important that they give equal support to the business. The sharing of that is very fair and balanced, I'd say. We speak every week. We have a management call. We talk through issues. John and Tom are very involved in that. That's the way it should be. Of course, fans don't see that. They just think he hasn't been to Liverpool. But Tom has been to Liverpool, so Red Sox fans are probably saying he doesn't spend much time in Boston. I guess they can't win. But I can say the effort they put in is very balanced.

SI.com: One thing they did with Fenway Park, instead of building a new stadium, they did a lot of smart things around the stadium while refurbishing the stadium itself to increase revenue streams. That seems to be the approach Liverpool decided to take with Anfield. Where are you right now with that plan?

Ayre: We've always said the preference was to stay at Anfield. It's the heart of the football club. I remember the first time John and Tom came to look at Liverpool before they bought it. I was the person showing them around. When we went into Anfield, John said to me, "This is like Fenway. It's the same feeling. Why would we want to build a new stadium?"

In order to extend Anfield, we need to acquire a bunch of privately owned property around the stadium. We're making really good progress with that. We have a meeting coming up in the next few weeks with the city council and ourselves and stakeholders. We said some months back it would take several months to improve that property acquisition situation. We're definitely on target so far. The No. 1 priority is to stay at Anfield, but there are two or three hoops to go through. The first is property acquisition. The second will be planning. And the third will be to build the thing. I would guess our next announcement on it will come sometime in May or June.

SI.com: When the new owners came in, there was talk of a strategy of buying players, and maybe because they were connected to baseball as well, the notion of "Moneyball" came up. Liverpool was the club that was bringing Moneyball to English football. Maybe that was associated also with specific people like Damien Comolli [Liverpool's director of football in 2011 and 2012]. Has there been a shift in transfer-market strategy post-Damien with the word Moneyball not being used as much?

Ayre: I don't think there was ever anyone at Liverpool using the word Moneyball, but plenty of other people were using it. I think the reality is there were two phases to what's happened since the change of ownership. In the first phase, like any major transaction of that type, we talked about the knowledge of soccer, and that takes time. So we probably spent a year with the owners taking a leap of faith to a certain degree of other people telling them what they should be doing. Within that year we then get to a situation where the dust has settled, and people start to see what is and isn't working.

I think the fundamental shift particularly around player acquisitions and disposals was that we took the view that it needs to be more of a science. Your biggest expenditure line can't be the whim of any individual. What we believe, and we continue to follow, is you need many people involved in the process. That doesn't mean somebody else is picking the team for Brendan [Rodgers, the manager]. But Brendan needs to set out with his team of people which positions we want to fill and what the key targets would be for that.

He has a team of people that go out and do an inordinate amount of analysis work to establish who are the best players in that position. It's a combination of things. Despite what people think and read, it's not a whole bunch of guys sitting behind a computer working out who we should buy. It's a combination of old-school scouting and watching players -- and that's Brendan, his assistants, our scouts -- with statistical analysis of players across Europe and the rest of the world. By bringing those two processes together, you get a much more educated view of who you should and shouldn't be buying. And perhaps as fundamentally, how much you should be paying and the structure to those contracts.

I think we've had relatively good success since we deployed that methodology. We're getting better all the time. Just as you think our football is getting better, our transfer activity is getting better. We were very pleased with the most recent window in January with Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge. Hopefully you continue to follow that path. But it's not a Moneyball strategy. It's a combination of skills and people and processes that bring us to what we're trying to achieve.

SI.com: As busy as Brendan Rodgers and his staff are with a punishing game schedule, are you OK with not having a director of football right now?

Ayre: Yeah. I think that director of football role in a lot of cases almost creates as many problems as it solves. Because people try to judge where the power base is with that role. Who's picking the team? Who's deciding which players? What we actually have is probably three or four people who all are involved in that role that all contribute if you like to the output that role would have. We have a head of analysis, a head of recruitment, a first-team manager, myself. All of those people are all inputting into a process that delivers what a director of football would deliver.

SI.com: Luis Suárez has been tremendous this season. I know he's locked in for a while contract wise, but other clubs would be interested in having him. Is that something you would consider in the transfer market if you got a remarkable offer for him?

Ayre: I remember when they bought the team, John made a comment in the media: We don't want to just build a team to win but to keep winning. To do that you have to have a number of world-class players on your team. To play at the highest level in the Premier League and European soccer, you need players like Luis and Steven Gerrard on your team. So the last thing in our mind is selling Luis Suárez. He's not for sale. It's not something we're interested in.

SI.com: There have been recent reports that Liverpool's debt had increased by 22 million pounds. How concerned are you about that?

Ayre: Firstly, those accounts were about 18 months old when we announced them, so it's kind of a historic discussion in that sense. As the senior person in any football club or business, of course you're concerned about debt. But in the grand scheme, our revenues continue to increase. Debt in football clubs is somewhat a moving feast, in the sense that if you buy or sell a player that can swing easily by that sort of number. The most important thing is if the debt is well-managed. If you look at our debt compared to our major competitors, in most cases we're in pretty good health. As a global business, we were the only team in the Deloitte Top 10 money league that doesn't play Champions League football. That tells you something about Liverpool. We have revenue streams that are beyond our football performance right now. As long as we continue to improve our revenue performance and invest well in the team and build the business sustainably, that's our objective.

SI.com: How convinced are you that UEFA will enforce Financial Fair Play?

Ayre: I think it's a real test for them and for [UEFA president Michel] Platini and others. Because they've really nailed their colors to the mast on this. They've been out front talking about the importance of it, about the need for it. If they don't deliver on it, then shame on them, because a lot of people have put a lot of time into it. Most clubs have been trying to manage toward it, particularly over the last two years when the measuring has started. This is a real test for UEFA.

We've all seen some of the deals that have gone on. I know when Manchester City announced their Etihad Stadium sponsorship, and John Henry made a comment: I'd love to see the guys who came in second. Could you tell me what the losing bid was? That's going to be the challenge. It's such an important part of the game. We've been working very hard within the Premier League to adopt our own form of Financial Fair Play so we don't have five or six teams qualifying for Europe that are subject to the rules and then another 15 or so that aren't.

SI.com: NBC will start showing the Premier League games in the U.S. in August. What's your sense of what they're about?

Ayre: They came and presented to all of us. They did two things. One, at the last Premier League shareholders meeting, NBC came and did a presentation to all the clubs, which I was at. It was fantastic. The fact some of the games will be shown on the main network, for me that's more important than the money. In markets where the game is growing, you want eyeballs as much as you want money. It's great for sponsors, great for the game. That will feed the revenue in the long term. NBC also came individually. I hosted some NBC guys at Liverpool at a game. We showed them what matchday is about, what sort of facilities there are. They've done that almost everywhere. It's great to see they're making a very real commitment to it. I think it will transform the exposure of the game in the United States.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20130416/liverpool-ian-ayre/?mobile=no#all

Ayre did an interview with Sports Illustrated in the US. Worth a read.

I got as far as the beginning of the second question then gave up.

Bullshit bingo at its finest.
Lots of double speak, with no real clarity or meaning.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem with Ayre. Too much bullshit, not enough action. Typical of someone promoted beyond their ability.

I think the reality is there were two phases to what's happened since the change of ownership. In the first phase, like any major transaction of that type, we talked about the knowledge of soccer, and that takes time. So we probably spent a year with the owners taking a leap of faith to a certain degree of other people telling them what they should be doing. Within that year we then get to a situation where the dust has settled, and people start to see what is and isn't working.

Was thinking about this bit last night and it kind of confirms that Kenny was never going to be a permanent option.  He was used as a stop gap until they got their heads round the game, despite his 3 year contract.

It makes you wonder if he would still have been sacked if he'd qualified for CL.

I'm not so sure about the Luis situation.  On one hand they're saying all the right things about keeping him but I'm not sure I trust them to do everything in their power to keep him. 

I got as far as the beginning of the second question then gave up.

Bullshit bingo at its finest.
Lots of double speak, with no real clarity or meaning.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem with Ayre. Too much bullshit, not enough action. Typical of someone promoted beyond their ability.

Agree.

fark I wish I was a multi billionaire, I'd by this club and put it back at the top by next season... I've had too much to drink

I got as far as the beginning of the second question then gave up.

Bullshit bingo at its finest.
Lots of double speak, with no real clarity or meaning.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem with Ayre. Too much bullshit, not enough action. Typical of someone promoted beyond their ability.

He likes the sound of his own voice and the echo of empty words.

Why the F**k would the owners contact David Gill (Scum) & Ivan Gazidis (Arse) about the ideas? Are these the so called advisors of FSG?.

Why the f**k would the owners contact David Gill (Scum) & Ivan Gazidis (Arse) about the ideas? Are these the so called advisors of FSG?.

Thought the same, I'm hopeful he meant things purely related to the premier league and nothing related to internal issues. I wouldn't have thought it wise policy to take advice from your competitors, in fact it's sure way to ruin.

Ayre said there maybe more news about Anfield in May or June, did he specify which year ?