NESV/Fenway Sports Group: Owners of LFC

I've been trying to go into more detail about the financial side of things to see just how much money we actually have to spend. I'm sure they have said they are not taking money out of the club, so I'm just trying to find out where it's going. If we still have debt, that would explain some of it but the figures I'm finding are conflicting and don't look all that reliable. Tired of reading about 'money to spend' as an arbitrary figure. Should be a way of finding out how much there is.

We have some debt, check club accounts. $174m according to this.

http://www.totalsportek.com/football/clubs-with-the-most-debt/

I don't doubt FSG's off field competence in turning around the finances of the club after buying Liverpool when we were on the verge of administration and outright humiliation. For that I will always be grateful to John Henry and co. But it's clear that, similar to Arsenal, the footballing side of the operation is coming secondary to the financial side.

To me I think they're building the club up further and further to the point they are a commercial and financial smash hit at which point they can sell to their friendly acquaintances in some Chinese state owned investment group like Everbright.

Genuine question to both the fenway fanboys and the fenway haters.

Are they small fry in terms of wealth in comparison to that of the owners/investors of our rivals?

Another question, how are their other sport ventures going? Is their silly boys rounders team doing any good or are they struggling to hit the ball?

If they genuinely are not that rich in comparison the competition  and therefore less inclined to spend, until they sell to somebody who is our chances of regular success is statistically very slim.

We can do the plucky underdog act if we box clever but there is a ceiling to how far that will get you.

 

What about people that indifferent,can't be arsed with whoever the suits/corporate gobshites are that run football clubs and football.And just wanna watch a bunch of guys run around for 90 minutes and hopefully win a game.Henry and co are doing a job sometimes decent,sometimes not.Would it be better with some dodgy chinese,arab,russian dunno but i still like to think there is a connection with the ordinary folk and LFC but that would be gone for me.

Not really because baseball has a structure in place...you don't have transfer fees...you can sign players for 10 year contracts and then sell those contracts off if you need to. You have a luxury tax in place and the money is basically shared equally between clubs.

Every team has XXX money to play with and it's all in the way you set your team up, manage your contracts and do your scouting and deals; it's not much different than the NFL or NBA here..it's about as balanced as it gets...there is zero balance in world football.

Success in one sport in another country with a different set of rules does not translate.

The failures in sports over here are down to poor or inept ownership/management.

There are plenty of clubs in Europe that are neither inept or poorly managed but will never achieve success strictly down to being able to compete with the wealth that some clubs have.

Dortmund is a perfect example.

Good points on all. Agreed

I don't doubt FSG's off field competence in turning around the finances of the club after buying Liverpool when we were on the verge of administration and outright humiliation. For that I will always be grateful to John Henry and co. But it's clear that, similar to Arsenal, the footballing side of the operation is coming secondary to the financial side.

To me I think they're building the club up further and further to the point they are a commercial and financial smash hit at which point they can sell to their friendly acquaintances in some Chinese state owned investment group like Everbright.

To me, their biggest fault is that they have no clue how the football works works, and their approach will never work.

They need to hire football people to run the club, people who know how to win. I've seen other teams that go 20, 40 or more  years without winning anything because they don't know what it takes to win and keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

We have some debt, check club accounts. $174m according to this.

http://www.totalsportek.com/football/clubs-with-the-most-debt/

Totalsportek got the figure right but the currency wrong it should be in pounds.

I'm sure we owed £174 million

There are no excuses for not spending best part of 70MM to secure VVD ahead of The Chavs and City. It's a "6 pointer" transfer, improving our squad while ensure our main opposition don't benefit. My faith on FSG was always tied to how they proceed in this window. We have the means to spend best part of 200MM this summer. Let's not screw this up.

Keita (we offered £60 m +) VVD (£50 m +) both rejected... Keita for this season is dead in the water, so we have his money the VVD money, so why not just put in something Southampton can not refuse, a £75 m + bid for VVD...? Worry about Keita next season

BigMick it makes no sense for them to do that, I wrote a post on this yesterday, the summary was that in both a short term and long term view it makes no sense for FSG to sell the clubs prized assets and funnel the cash back into the club because if they hold a long term view then they clearly like , or even love, the club and want success, ie don't sell your best players, if they hold a short term view then they want to maximise the brand value with an eye on selling it in the future which you do not do by selling your best players and putting the cash in the bank.

Maybe you should look at this a different way... Coutinho cosy £8.5 m, and is now valued at £100 m +.... One player who can get injured at any time and it's game over... sell the player buy two or three more players and watch their value rise... Improves the club both on and off the pitch... Could be what FSG are thinking.... Just another point of view to put out there 

Keita (we offered £60 m +) VVD (£50 m +) both rejected... Keita for this season is dead in the water, so we have his money the VVD money, so why not just put in something Southampton can not refuse, a £75 m + bid for VVD...? Worry about Keita next season

We haven't offered anything for VVD

What we dont know is how we are structuring the deal for Keita either.

60m looks massive, but it's probably structured. We could have only offered 20 up front.. 5m a season for the next 4 seasons and the rest on contract stipulations.

I find it hard to believe that if we had offered a more enticing deal that a club the size of Red Bull could turn it down when they will lose him for less next summer.
They aren't in a cash rich league, they can't force a bidding war next season if he improves again..
I imagine we are f**king around and the deal isn't tempting.

Look at Chelsea, they have signed the French league champions starting midfielder for less, they are a bigger side than Red Bull with more going fot them..  but by reports they have paid most of the money up front and very little to come later.
Don't you find it strange that they didn't just say no, flatly refuse or dig  their heels in on the price? The deal must be more tempting
They are a bigger side than RBL

I still think we are trying to be too clever for our own good, and have messed it up.

You do realize there is another option if you don't get your first choice player. It's not  A) get first choice player B) buy someone crap just to buy them.

There's also C) Have a backup plan with one or two other quality players that you would like and that would improve the team and go for them.

Tell that to Klopp and the management in the club. I very much  doubt its the owners who don't have a second or third choice, I mean if they are willing to spend x amount on a player, who the manager wants, then why would they give a sh*t which player it is, beyond certain practical parameters of course.

Let me clarify? Shut up you, you jumped up little Tory tw*t.

Tell me where I've mentioned Saudi billions? You're one of them who isn't as arsed as others about on the pitch success. You know, what its all about.

It's fine, I understand and would expect that from somebody who doesn't really support the club.

The day I take Liverpool Football Club lessons from some foreign Thatcher loving w*nk stain is the day I haven't got a hole in my f**king arse.

CHILL.... Bit over the top in some places mate, Dail it back a notch

Fenway HATER here

They are in first place ATM and have one of the highest payrolls in all of baseball. Since the FSG takeover in the early 2000's they have won it all 3 times. Leading up to that period that hadn't won the world series in 89 years. Outside of the Yankees and Dodgers they spend better than anyone else. Like us their fan base is huge. They have been one of the best run programs since FSG took them over. Kind of crazy, right?

Does the Boston baseball team have a manager who actually likes to buy players as opposed to ours who just has one target for each position and is completely inflexible and stubborn in pursuing anyone else?

Seriously guys i have been as critical as anyone else about the owners in past windows but in this window the blame is not the owners it is the manager and transfer negotiation team. The owners have been more than happy to sanction some pretty hefty transfers, I'd imagine they are every bit as pissed off as we are that Jürgen did not have an option B or C and that we have had another wishy washy transfer window.

Does the Boston baseball team have a manager who actually likes to buy players as opposed to ours who just has one target for each position and is completely inflexible and stubborn in pursuing anyone else?

Seriously guys i have been as critical as anyone else about the owners in past windows but in this window the blame is not the owners it is the manager and transfer negotiation team. The owners have been more than happy to sanction some pretty hefty transfers, I'd imagine they are every bit as pissed off as we are that Jürgen did not have an option B or C and that we have had another wishy washy transfer window.

Smoke and mirrors with these big offers I'd imagine

Imagine you want to buy a house, say it's valued at £1,000,000... You tell them you're really interested, you put an offer in

100,000 up front
50,000 for the next 6 years
The rest of it if it lives up to your expectations... Ie it doesn't fall down, it flies you to space, it provides you with a supermodel wife..

They say no but you can tell everyone that you made an offer but they wouldn't take it

Your mate is interested in a very similar house

He offers £900,000 up front in cash and the rest next year. He gets the house and moves in while your living on the street telling everyone that there's nothing I can do

Maybe you should look at this a different way... Coutinho cosy £8.5 m, and is now valued at £100 m +.... One player who can get injured at any time and it's game over... sell the player buy two or three more players and watch their value rise... Improves the club both on and off the pitch... Could be what FSG are thinking.... Just another point of view to put out there 

Out of interest why don't they use this same "model" with their baseball team ie buy young emerging stars raise their profile and sell them? is it a case of them hating LFC and deliberately just want to see it limp along, you see I just don't believe that because their end game is to raise the clubs profile so that they can sell it on for as big a profit as possible OR invest in the long term in which case they obviously want to achieve success. Either way you do NOT sell your top box-office talent and replace it with junior players, which means losing position in the league and consequently position on the world stage affecting marketing revenues, resale value etc. It simply makes no sense from a sporting, or financial point of view.
BTW we know from the Baseball side that these guys aren't idiots and that they know how to win and how to increase revenues etc so unless they are closet manure fans it makes no sense to sabotage the team. No I think the problem here is a lack of a top notch DOF, someone to really dictate the transfers, to make sure Klopp has several options each window and that we get a deal done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Smoke and mirrors with these big offers I'd imagine

Imagine you want to buy a house, say it's valued at £1,000,000... You tell them you're really interested, you put an offer in

100,000 up front
50,000 for the next 6 years
The rest of it if it lives up to your expectations... Ie it doesn't fall down, it flies you to space, it provides you with a supermodel wife..

They say no but you can tell everyone that you made an offer but they wouldn't take it

Sorry but that's fantasy land tinhat conspiracy crap and you don't have a shred of proof to back that up. In any case if they were just going to do smoke and mirrors for some bizare reason (perhaps to top up the bulging current account of LFC), which apparently involves offering £70 million for a player valued at £40 million, then why not repeat the trick with more targets to further obfuscate the picture and make it look like they are trying really really hard on many targets?

Sorry but that's fantasy land tinhat conspiracy crap and you don't have a shred of proof to back that up. In any case if they were just going to do smoke and mirrors for some bizare reason whilst topping up the current account of LFC for no obvious reason, which apparently involves offering £70 million for a player valued at £40 million, then why not repeat the trick with more targets to further obfuscate the picture and make it look like they are trying really hard on many targets?

You're presuming I'm saying they're doing it on purpose. They probably can't afford to offer it fully

They have moved on the managers targets.. They haven't got them, and if you think it's simply because they refuse to sell then you're deluded buddy.

RBL will lose him for 48 next summer unless he signs a new deal which he is refusing to do, absolutely no business model would sanction losing 12-22m in a year if the deal was as straight forward as you think.. If you believe that we have offered them that as a pretty much full and frank offer.
No chance

Sorry but that's fantasy land tinhat conspiracy crap and you don't have a shred of proof to back that up. In any case if they were just going to do smoke and mirrors for some bizare reason (perhaps to top up the bulging current account of LFC), which apparently involves offering £70 million for a player valued at £40 million, then why not repeat the trick with more targets to further obfuscate the picture and make it look like they are trying really really hard on many targets?

It was reported that £40M was offered upfront for Keita.

The structured deal of a tenner a year and a box of Dunkin' Donuts wasn't enough to twist the arm.

We haven't offered anything for VVD

Thought I read some where we had, just before "Tap up Gate" But thanks for clearing that up... Makes me think though, was it always going to be Keita or VVD and never the both of them...?

Out of interest why don't they use this same "model" with their baseball team ie buy young emerging stars raise their profile and sell them? is it a case of them hating LFC and deliberately just want to see it limp along, you see I just don't believe that because their end game is to raise the clubs profile so that they can sell it on for as big a profit as possible OR invest in the long term in which case they obviously want to achieve success. Either way you do NOT sell your top box-office talent and replace it with junior players, which means losing position in the league and consequently position on the world stage affecting marketing revenues, resale value etc. It simply makes no sense from a sporting, or financial point of view.
BTW we know from the Baseball side that these guys aren't idiots and that they know how to win and how to increase revenues etc so unless they are closet manure fans it makes no sense to sabotage the team. No I think the problem here is a lack of a top notch DOF, someone to really dictate the transfers, to make sure Klopp has several options each window and that we get a deal done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

In short, it is a different set up, Draft picks and all... Maybe Fl, or Boston could explain it better

It was reported that £40M was offered upfront for Keita.

The structured deal of a tenner a year and a box of Dunkin' Donuts wasn't enough to twist the arm.

 

It was reported that £40M was offered upfront for Keita.

The structured deal of a tenner a year and a box of Dunkin' Donuts wasn't enough to twist the arm.

Exactly. It's not like their second offer of £70m or whatever it was, was all upfront. It's FSG, I guarantee they tried to structure it as too break up the charges. And it wouldn't surprise me if we did bid for VVD (which we wont) if we tried the same thing and he ended up at Chelsea because they will pay the full amount up front.

CHILL.... Bit over the top in some places mate, Dail it back a notch

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