Major news concerning the future of Liverpool FC is that Quatari Telecoms Giants: Ooredoo wish to buy a majority stake-holding in John W Henry’s Liverpool.
It is believed that FSG are under some financial stress with their baseball team barely breaking even and their other team Liverpool costing them money in terms of cash already invested and the knowledge that much more investment is needed to get the players in who will challenge for the top four next Season.
John W Henry is a balance-sheet man and he has realised that balancing the books alone at Liverpool will not be enough to achieve tangible success at Anfield.
To this end he has begun negotiations with Qatar’s very rich Telecommunications company, Ooredoo to buy a majority stake in his £300 million purchase of Liverpool FC, now worth £670 due to sponsorship deals with shirt-sponsors Warrior Sport and club sponsors Standard Chartered Bank.
The cash injection needed to propel Liverpool forward into the future can only come from the UAE company and discussions and due-diligence of Liverpool’s accounts are already underway.
A Quatari spokesman, last week stated:
‘We want to sponsor the club in full. We want to sponsor the stadium (possibly rename it) as well as the club’s kits. Our goal is to reach the Asian markets where the Premier League has an enormous fan base.
‘We received the tender from the club a few days ago and we are currently in the process of due diligence and we are studying each aspect of the study.
‘It is a dual interest, Liverpool needs the money to compete with the European heavyweights and we want to expand our brand to reach new markets via football.’
While this is not a Hicks/Gillette scenario, it is far from ideal.
Fenway Sports Group still wish to keep a sizeable stake in the club, but it will be a minority one.
Lets await developments…