The owners are considering a sale

In spring 2021, stock exchange trader John W. Henry sold eleven percent of his majority-owned Fenway Sports Group (FSG), which manages the Boston Red Sox baseball club in addition to Liverpool FC, for £655 million. With the proceeds, the American acquired the Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey team six months later for about the same amount.

Such a transaction is standard practice in the investment industry. However, this process only works to a limited extent in capital-intensive top-flight football, because it requires ongoing financial efforts rather than just one-time ones. And so for venture capitalist Henry, 73, who has never made a secret of the fact that returns are his top priority, the seemingly limitless and grotesque betting, which he once indirectly fueled with various club investments, has obviously become too expensive.

Jurgen Klopp remains committed to Liverpool FC

At the beginning of the week, Fenway Sports Group announced that it was considering selling the club’s shares in Liverpool. The media release states that the FSG is examining, on the basis of “frequent expressions of interest from third parties”, considering “new shareholders” in Liverpool under the right conditions. At this early stage of a potential club sale, which investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been commissioned to explore, decision-makers are leaving open the question of the extent to which they ultimately intend to offer the traditional River Mersey operation. However, according to reports, a complete sales presentation has been created. In response to the nervousness in the club environment, the coach Jürgen Klopp (contract until 2026) said he would definitely continue to feel “obligated” to the club.

However, the timing for the sale of club shares seems to have been chosen well. The recent change of ownership at competitor Chelsea FC showed what revenues can currently be achieved for a top Premier League club. Although oligarch Roman Abramovich was more or less forced to sell his club shares by the British government because of his close ties to the Kremlin, a consortium of investors paid an astronomical £2.5 billion for Chelsea – plus an agreement to make a further £1.75 billion available as investment funds .

Liverpool was once a bargain for John W. Henry

As Liverpool, with their successful club history and global fan base, rank ahead of Chelsea in the Most Valuable Football Clubs ranking, it is likely that FSG would also be in for a terrific profit. Because when Henry and his partners saved Liverpool FC from bankruptcy twelve years ago, he only had to spend around £300m. With his takeover, he was betting that the club, acquired at a bargain price, would multiply in value as football grew at a dizzying pace – and he was right.

The business magazine “Forbes” currently estimates the club’s value at 3.9 billion pounds. The rarity of such prestige objects underlies the skyrocketing prices in England. And the assumption that TV revenues will continue to explode in the coming years due to more and more paid streaming platforms vying for broadcast content.

In order to benefit from this hoped-for development, however, a competitive club is necessary. And competitiveness has become an extremely expensive undertaking due to the entry of ever more financially strong investors. The Premier League now consists largely of clubs run by multi-billionaires. Newcastle United holds the top position financially, the club is 80 percent owned by the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, whose assets are estimated at more than half a trillion.

This development has already changed the structure of the league permanently and puts clubs that are financially self-sufficient to some extent independent of their owners in trouble – including Liverpool and Southampton, who meet in the Premier League on Saturday.

Due to increasing concerns about relegation in Southampton, Serbian billionaire Dragan Solak, who controls 80 percent of the club through his capital vehicle Sports Republic, approved a capital increase in the summer. This diluted Katharina Liebherr’s 20 percent stake, the Swiss had inherited the club from her late father Markus Liebherr.

With the cash injection, Southampton was able to sign up for around £70m with new players for the first time in years. Because the club is still in a relegation zone, coach Ralph Hasenhüttl has just been released. And the pressure on Liverpool is also increasing noticeably before the six-week break in the season because of the World Cup in Qatar.

For years, the Fenway Sports Group benefited significantly from the excellent work of German coach Jürgen Klopp and his colleagues. They succeeded in a remarkably goal-oriented manner in acquiring comparatively inexpensive professionals and shaping them into top players. Whenever one of them left the club, like recently Sadio Mané, who was recruited from FC Bayern, a new ace was conjured up from the sleeve – which was at least as good, if not even better.

But after winning two cup competitions last season (FA Cup and League Cup), with which Klopp became only the second coach after Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson in England to win all the titles with one and the same club, the traces of the tour de force have become visible . At the beginning of the season, Klopp wanted “a little more” risk from the owners on the transfer market, he primarily needs alternatives in midfield.

Meanwhile, injury-plagued Liverpool FC have slipped to eighth in the table and are in danger of missing out on next season’s Champions League. This scenario would really get the owners’ money.

With the plans to introduce a Super League failed with a bang

The FSG tried to protect itself against this horror scenario. First they made common cause with their archrival Manchester United: The two largest island clubs advertised the “Project Big Picture” in order to be able to independently market eight league games per season abroad. When that power grab failed, in April 2021 Fenway Sports Group backed the failed launch of a Super League that would have included Liverpool as a permanent fixture.

At that time, high-ranking FSG representatives spoke quietly about “medium-term consequences” of the failure. These have now come to light with the outspoken consideration of attracting new shareholders to Liverpool FC.