Share Liverpool FC

Tickets for matches would be a problem agreed - if Real Madrid or Barca is an example to go by - they need to apply for them each time, even season ticket holders. If they don't apply by a certain time, the ticket goes on general sale.

As a non-season ticket holder I like that idea BUT if I payed £5000 I would want some come back, dividend, free/descounted ticket, £5000 is £5000 in anyones book, this is a nice idea and a noble one at that, but I can not see it work, all it will do is put the price up if they go on to sell, (H&G). If I was a season ticket holder and one who has payed year in and year out I would be well cheesed off if I lost it to some one just 'cos they had more spare cash than me, espisically if I'd payed for a ticket for 10 years or so... theres my £5000! you've had over the years.

I just can't see it work come off. We're not in spain.

Well all the ex-shareholders are given a lifetime right to a ticket if they want them. 

Rogan Taylor taking questions on bbc radio merseyside right now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/merseyside.shtml

The 'count me in' option on their website has had the most response so far. Can't remember what the figure was but it was in the thousands. I think it was only 128 people who had clicked 'you have no chance'.

He said they might be looking into other ways for people to get in touch other than just through their website, because they appreciate that there will probably be other reds who don't go near the internet.

They are supposed to be giving it another few weeks yet until they decide on taking the idea into stage 2 and progress further with it.

A lot of people were asking about the season ticket issue or 'priority' to the people who put the five grand in. And it wasn't really cleared up. All he basically said was, it would be totally unfair if that was to happen, he wouldn't want to see people losing out and how can everyone expect tickets with such a large amount of people, exceeding any capacity we have or might have when there is a new stadium.

I think they just want to see how many people there is who are really serious about getting rid of the americans and putting the club back into the hands of genuine fans - who really care and love the club and not want to see it crippled with debt and fans paying that debt off for the yanks. Rather than seeing who is happy to put five grand in to get priority on future tickets.

Fair enough. They're just testing the waters for now, which is important. If this was to go ahead, people would have to understand the reason why they are putting up their hard earned money into Liverpool FC and what they want for it.

This notion sends a message out to the yanks though. One that they might just take notice of a bit more, rather than a few thousand reds staying behind after a game.

Good post Kenny; 

Here are some early figures from the Daily Post.


What do you people think for the first week the share liverpool site has pulled in ,Do you think they can raise the funds needed!!!

50,000 visitors

UK
Norway
USA
ROI in that order

11,800 Count me In
5000 want more info
7900 Good Idea, Can't Afford
128 No Chance


Well it is not bad for the 1st week of the site being up and running, and it was down for 2 days.
 If DIC did release a statement saying they are not going to buy LFC then it would make more LFC fans want to sign up.

That last sentence is important there graham. If they do put in a bid, people no they cant match the DIC therefore pull away, however if DIC pull out then the fans will feel they can gain the power of our club.

In theory, great idea but when put into practice it can be devastating.

Ive just pledged to purchase two shares, one for my son and one for my granson. I still think that its all pie in the sky, but hey lets not be a kill joy! Here's to hope!!!

I have been to the Provident to arrange a loan of £5,000.... the repayment with interest is £500,000 and the kids have offered to keep paying it even when I'm dead!

With the repayments on our club loan I bet Cagney & Lacey borrowed the money off the Provvy!

I have been to the Provident to arrange a loan of £5,000.... the repayment with interest is £500,000 and the kids have offered to keep paying it even when I'm dead!

With the repayments on our club loan I bet Cagney & Lacey borrowed the money of the Provvy!

Better rate of interset than Northern Rock are offering at the moment then

Got this e-mail from them yesterday.



Hi Graham,

First, let me thank you for ticking the 'Count me in!' feedback box on the website for the ShareLiverpoolFC scheme. Thanks, too, for your patience; it has taken us some time to be able to get back to you directly, but we hope to be able to stay in touch with you now, both via email and through the new, 'Latest News' page at: www.shareliverpoolfc.com

As you will understand, it has taken us some time to recover from the huge initial response to our proposal (you can read about the numbers on the news page), and for us to get together formally as the 'Share LiverpoolFC Steering Group' (SLSG). We have also updated the news page to tell you who some of the members of the SLSG are and how we plan to proceed from here.

We have also established the Share LiverpoolFC Company Ltd so we have a legal base from which to operate.

This is the start of a very challenging but exciting adventure and you have taken the first step on the way. No group of fans has ever attempted a 'buy out' of a big English club with a view to installing a one-member; one-vote system of ownership ? not unlike the model used so commonly in Spain, most famously at Barcelona, and elsewhere on mainland Europe. But as anger and dissatisfaction grows amongst fans (not just at Liverpool FC) about the way in which Club ownership is being traded, the question of 'Who should own our football clubs?' will rise increasingly to the surface.

We are leading an 'ownership revolution' that will deliver LFC into the hands of its fans and also act as an inspiration to many others with similar concerns (Liverpool fans are used to leading the way!). We at Liverpool are lucky; we love and support a Club with a huge following, at home and abroad, which makes us 'fan rich'.

There is enough of us to make this work; we just need to get the message out; explain the concept in much more detail and rely on the strength and intensity of the relationship that Liverpool fans all round the world have with their Club to make it happen.

That's precisely what we will be doing over the next few weeks. You will probably have heard that we have been joined by two 'Liverpool Legends' ? Phil Thompson & John Aldridge have 'signed' for the ShareLiverpoolFC scheme (if you haven't heard, go to our webpage). We will address the local and global following as directly as we can by running publicity campaigns in UK, Asia, USA and Scandinavia (some major 'hot-spots' of LFC fans), also visiting some of these regions to raise the profile of the campaign.

We'll give it our best shot ? but without your support there is little we can do. We urge you to tell every Reds fan you know about the share Liverpool scheme; direct them to the website and encourage them to reply via the tick boxes.

BUT PLEASE DON'T ENCOURAGE REPEAT TICKS OF THE BOXES ? IT JUST CONFUSES OUR DATA!

In the meantime, we will try to stay in touch with you via email and the 'latest news' page on the website. At the moment, it is difficult to reply to individual emails, so please bear with us.

So, Welcome aboard! And many thanks for your support. LFC needs us as much now as at any time in the past.

Rogan Taylor,

On behalf of the Share Liverpool Steering Group
www.shareliverpoolfc.com

^^^^^^BUMP
Email update

Dear friend,

Work is continuing on our quest to bring fan ownership of Liverpool FC, and I wanted to give you a quick update, as well as ask for your help.

Our formal proposal to enable ShareLiverpoolFC to be an investment vehicle to enable us to bid for the club is on the verge of approval by the Financial Service Authority (FSA). This is a complex, yet necessary step in the practical requirements needed, and we thank our specialist lawyers, Cobbetts, for their work on our behalf.

The heart and soul of Liverpool FC rests in L4, but Liverpool FC would not be the global force it is today without the support we have attracted all over the world. So we continue to take the concept of the fans owning the club to our international fan-base around the world. Members of the ShareLiverpoolFC steering group have been meeting with key contacts from Norway, the US, Republic of Ireland and elsewhere, and I myself have just returned from Japan, where I was able to promote the concept on Japanese national TV and radio.

In the UK, we continue to attract national and local media coverage, though we need to keep our message in people's minds as the saga of Hicks and Gillett's ownership rumbles on, and DIC await in the wings. Only fan ownership can bring the club management run in the interests of the supporters and the community.

This is where you can come in. We'd like you to get on the websites and forums and talk about ShareLiverpoolFC, and the concept of fan ownership. Where people are discussing the ownership of the club on phone-ins, please get on the phone and talk about it.

We're serious about this project - that's why we're taking the time to get it done properly. You can help us keep the momentum going. Tell your friends, and get involved - let's do this together.

Best wishes

Rogan Taylor,

On behalf of the Share Liverpool Steering Group
http://www.shareliverpoolfc.com/index.php

---------------------------------------------------------------------

This is about getting our club back into our hands and freeing us from the money grabbing lying bas**rds, and is not a means to priority tickets or making profits from dividends

Did everyone else get the email the other day?

It arrived, but the rules of Microsoft put it in my spam-box?  Is this a sign do you reckon?

Has Hicks got some shares in Bill Gates company as well?

Bump.

Missed this article the other day. Liverpool Echo link

A BID by Liverpool FC fans to launch a £500m buy-out of the club is going on tour.

The team behind Share Liverpool FC is preparing to visit Reds’ "hotspot" countries around the globe to win support for the scheme.

Trips to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, South Africa and India are being outlined by the group.

They want to tap into Liverpool FC supporters around the world to raise the money needed to displace the club’s controversial American owners.

On Friday they visit Ireland to urge thousands of Reds’ supporters to back the scheme.

Share Liverpool FC leaders said three prominent ex-Liverpool players, and new bid supporters, will be unveiled to front the initiative.

Former Irish Football Association chief executive Bernard O’Byrne has also joined the Share Liverpool FC project.

Rogan Taylor, director of Liverpool university’s Football Industry Group who is fronting the scheme, said: "We are set to go further afield.

"So far 60% of interest is from the UK and Ireland so we want to get our message out to the wider world. We will be appointing co-ordinators for different territories."

The latest figures show 40,000 people have registered their interest in the initiative launched in January.

Supporters said 15,000 have pledged the £5,000 needed.

The remaining 25,000 people are said to be interested in investing £5,000 jointly with friends or have requested more information about the ambitious scheme.

For it to stand a chance of succeeding 100,000 fans must each invest £5,000.

The Financial Services Authority is expected to approve their provident society constitution which details a member’s voting rights.

Reds behind the ambitious plan include Anfield greats Phil Thompson, John Aldridge and John Barnes.

It was launched amid a boardroom crisis which has seen the relationship between American co- owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks break down.


How's everyones feelings about this these days?

Personally, I can't help being concerned that the idea is being flaunted all over the world. Don't get me wrong, I know there is passionate reds all over the world - you only have to look on this forum to see that. But does anyone else feel like this idea hasn't got the desired response and now Share Liverpool is having to sell itself to make the numbers up?

Still a good idea, but there's so many questions....

The only problem I can see with having say 10,000 equal share investors, is where do you get the money from to fund transfers etc? Its noy like we could all just drop £10 and hope it adds up to us getting Silva or Villa as so many people want.

Share LFC arrived in Dublin yesterday. Ireland is ranked third behind Britain and Norway in terms of hits on the site. Former Irish reds John Aldridge and Ronnie Whelan were present. " Im very frustrated. To buy the club for 17.8 million euro and then put a huge amount of debt on it is a disgrace. It hurts and I think now Liverpool football club is in the worst turmoil it could ever be in past present or future! We have to come out of this somewhere along the line and when we do we want share LFC at the table" said Aldo

Ronnie Whelan added " I am very happy to join the likes of Aldo Phil Thompson Jason McAteer John Barnes in expressing my full support for share LFC. No one that has played for Liverpool could ever forget the dedication and passion of the fans. If any football club should be owned by fans its Liverpool Fc. The fans are the heart and soul of this great club. We have all seen whats happened recently and its wrong for the ownership of such a historic institution to be traded like a commodity"

Rogan Taylor said he was convinced many Irish fans will sign up as he was aware of the passion felt for Liverpool over here. So it really looks to be in full swing now with planned visits to Asia and the likes maybe this plan will work and maybe even better then first expected?

Keep the faith

Y.N.W.A

Dear friend

SHARELIVERPOOLFC MOVES TO PHASE TWO

Click here to re-register your support

New website launched

The original website where you registered your interest in ShareLiverpoolFC has been reconstructed, with much more detail about how ‘fan ownership’ would work and who is directly involved (and how group membership would work). It remains at the same address: www.shareliverpoolfc.com 

If you are still interested in the ShareLiverpoolFC project, it is essential that you return to the new site and re-register your interest - click here to re-register

The software behind the new website will enable us to understand much more about who and, even more importantly, where our supporters come from. This is important, as we have to follow different rules when asking for investment in different countries. There have been 210 different nationalities visiting the website but we know little else about you.

The situation at the club hasn’t really changed since you first signed up. In fact, if anything, the future of the club looks even less secure. It’s becoming clear that the level of debt being loaded onto LFC by Hicks and Gillett is unsustainable – eventually, something will have to give. So we need your support more than ever.

We expect to keep in much closer touch with you by email from now on – and the website will develop interactively as time goes by.

But don’t forget to go back to the site: ‘Return and re-register'

We don’t want to lose touch with you.

On the new website, you can also read about the other developments in the ShareLiverpoolFC project, and see what we’ve been up to since we launched.

Many thanks for your interest in the ShareLiverpoolFC project – and thanks too for your patience.

 

Rogan Taylor

For the Board
ShareLiverpoolFC


I have put my name on the list.

Me too Graham, would be great if we could get a number of us together on here, fancy owning a bit of Fernando Torres        

Me too Graham, would be great if we could get a number of us together on here, fancy owning a bit of Fernando Torres       

Not sure what bit you would like to own.

Just had this in my InBox    anyone interested ??


Dear Vicky,

The first thing I must do is apologise to you all for the very poor level of communications from ShareLiverpoolFC. You may well be someone who clicked on the website many months ago – and have never heard from us since!

I must take the principal responsibility for this. When I decided to ask the question: ‘How many of us would be interested in mass democratic ownership of LFC?’, I had no idea of the huge response I would get, nor any real grasp of the complexities involved in putting together a realistic scheme to accomplish it.

The aim seemed simple:

‘LET’S HAVE A DEMOCTRATICALLY OWNED AND CONTROLLED LIVERPOOL FC’

And it is simple in essence.

But the detailed work required to make it happen involves considerable expertise in law, finance, accountancy and communications. It has taken some months to establish an appropriately skilled working group of Liverpool fans – and finally to appoint a Board of the newly established ShareLiverpoolFC ‘Society’.

ShareLiverpoolFC is now an ‘Industrial & Provident Society’ – a sort of co-op - approved by the Financial Services Authority – and it’s designed to work as a vehicle through which Liverpool fans can buy Liverpool FC in a democratic, one-member; one-vote structure. The cost of one share remains at £5,000, and no individual can own more than one share.

It was clear from the early responses on the website that many thousands LFC fans loved the idea but could not afford to buy a share alone. We have given considerable thought as to how to develop group membership in ShareLiverpoolFC, where small or large groups of fans – regulars at a pub, for example – could come together and collectively own one share.

All this – and a great deal more about how ShareLiverpoolFC would work – is now available on the new website: www.shareliverpoolfc.com

You can see what we’ve been up to these last few months – and exactly who is involved on the Board and the Steering Group.

If you want to express support for ShareLiverpoolFC, it is essential that you return to the website; take a good look at the detailed information there, and register your position by clicking an option.

This time we guarantee you will hear from us immediately and we’ll keep you in regular touch with what’s going on.

The crisis that drove us to launch ShareLiverpoolFC continues. The Club – OUR Club – remains in a mess. From a club with manageable debt and a rosy future twelve months ago, we now have a huge debt loaded onto the club by owners who have reneged on the promises they made. We can sort this out once and for all time by taking ownership through a ‘members society’.

It’s not revolutionary – many great clubs in Europe are owned by their fans – and we can do it if we want it enough.

So I say sorry again for losing touch with you. It won’t happen again – just re-visit our website and register again.

Thanks.

Rogan Taylor
Board member,
ShareLiverpoolFC

 

A MESSAGE FROM SOME LIVERPOOL ‘LEGENDS’

We urge you to go to the website and consider what ShareLiverpoolFC has to say. Surely every Liverpool fan would want to own a piece of their Club? We are all convinced that ShareLiverpoolFC is the best way forward for the Club we loved to play for – and the Club we still love as fans.

Let’s face it, if any club should be owned by its fans, it’s Liverpool FC. We wholeheartedly support the ShareLiverpoolFC scheme – but it won’t work unless large numbers of the millions of LFC fans at home & abroad give it their support.

It IS possible to do this. You just have to believe. Remember Istanbul!

John Aldridge (Board member of ShareLiverpoolFC)
John Barnes
Jason McAteer
Phil Thompson
Ronnie Whelan

great cause....    hope it gets off to a flying start.....

i had a similar idea and made a facebook group but nobody joined...ha ha

serously though, this is the way forward in my mind, but would it lead to political "elect this president and he will buy this player scenario...like barca and real"

I agree it is a great cause and I joined up ages ago despite not being able to afford it!  The club should be in power of the fans because at the moment, lets be honest we are just "customers" in the eyes of the owners. Football is becoming more detached from the fans and has become a business. This is not something which makes me comfortble. This would certainly please Bill Shankly, a socialist (I know this is not exactly a socialist idea..), who always imlpied the importance of the fans and the role that the club has in the community.

the game should not be about the finances and the rich fat cats but more on the relationship of the club and its community of loyal supporters which some are struggling to afford ( in comes Liverpool AFC)

Hi Graham,

ShareLiverpoolFC gets active

Come and join ex-players, the ShareLiverpoolFC board and the Secretary of State for Media, Culture & Sport in our campaign for fan ownership

We’re stepping up our bid for fan ownership of Liverpool FC, and launching a new phase with the backing of LFC legends, celebrities and politicians.

Come and join us at this launch, which is being held before the second leg of the Champions League qualifier on Wednesday 27 August, at the Liverpool Lighthouse, in Anfield, starting at 5.30pm. There will be plenty of time to make it to the match – the Lighthouse is on Oakfield Rd, just 2 minutes walk from the ground, and we’ll be done by 7.00pm.

You’ll hear from Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport and former Chairman of Supporters Direct, me and other ex-players, as well as Rogan Taylor, board member and founder of ShareLiverpoolFC.

There will also be the chance to ask questions about how it will all work.

The urgency of fan involvement in the club has become acute since the American owners took over. Now saddled with debt, we’ve all read story after story this summer of Rafa trying to sell players to find money to buy new ones. Even the money for Robbie Keane was borrowed, and has been added to the burden on our once financially stable and secure club. Now, apparently, Hicks and Gillet have been unable to agree to put the finance together for the Barry deal which is now dead in the water.

This great Club is losing ground, day by day. If you love LFC, please think about committing to the ShareLiverpoolFC project – either on your own or in a group – or with your time and support. (see www.shareliverpoolfc.com for more information or to re-register your support).

If you’re already signed up, please pass this invitation to a relative, friend, neighbour or workmate – especially those who might not go on the internet very often.

Numbers at the event will be strictly limited by the size of the venue (about 400 people), and will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. So get there early to be sure of a seat. There’s a café at the venue if you want a bite to eat before the match!

I’m gutted by what’s happening at our club, and really motivated to do something about it. ShareLiverpoolFC can work if we all get behind it. So pass the word.

YNWA

John Aldridge


I think I wll be going, anybody else going.

I'll try and head down for this.  I'm in work till 5 but will see if I can 'disappear' an hour earlier.