Liverpool Football Club is owned by a hedge fund. There is no way to smarten that up or make it seem less grubby than it is. Fenway Sports Group’s head, John Henry, is worth a personal fortune of £4.2 billion, whilst minority investor LeBron James is worth £1 billion and Tom Werner’s personal worth comes in at £1.5 billion.
Those figures are important when you consider that FSG have announced ticket price rises that will bring in £1.2 million. That isn’t £1.2 million per match, it is £1.2 million over the course of an entire season. As a result, Liverpool supporter groups are planning a protest for the game against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
The Price Rise Means Nothing to the Club
When Mohamed Salah leaves Liverpool this summer, the Egyptian’s departure will mean that the club will be saving around £400,000 every week. That amounts to £1.6 million each month. In other words, the Reds will be saving more than the £1.2 million that the club is looking to raise through ticket sales 12 times over. Add in the amount of money that football clubs make from the television deal and you can soon see why so many supporters are upset by this seemingly pointless cash grab.
Ticket prices for England’s top four divisions back in 1981
When football was actually affordable so eg the £1.50 at my club Liverpool in 1980/81 is equal to £8.06 today, so if tickets went up with inflation £8.06 is what you would pay to get into the Kop today instead of the £45 you actually pay
— David Hughes (@filmcritic.bsky.social) 9 December 2024 at 21:08
Yes, operating costs have gone up. It is more expensive to turn the floodlights on, run the sprinklers on the pitch and ensure that the heating is on in the winter. All of that was also the case when the club chose to spend £100 million on Florian Wirtz in the summer, however, yet there was no concern about those rising costs then. The owners have said that ticket prices will rise with inflation, but that didn’t happen for the decades prior to now, so why does it matter all of a sudden?
Show FSG the Yellow Card
Fan groups have got a number of yellow cards printed for this weekend, which will be handed out to everyone attending Anfield for Saturday’s match against Crystal Palace. The idea is for the cards to be shown in the 13th minute, in addition to the fact that there will be no flags or banners on the Kop for the second successive home league fixture. Given FSG backed down the last time there was fan action with a mass walkout, it is a wonder that they’ve decided to take on Liverpool supporters once again.
@deadlypoolbook Show FSG the yellow card- against LFC Ticket Price Increases #liverpoolfc #football #liverpool #fyp #showfsgtheyellowcard ♬ Money – Pink Fraud
The main objection from the likes of Spirit of Shankly is that FSG have declared that prices will rise for the next three seasons, making us the only club to put such a system of price rises in place. It also means that the prices will go up irrespective of anything else happening, so if the club makes more money from hospitality tickets, then so be it, you still need to pay more. In a statement, SoS have said, “Decisions made by the current custodians will impact supporters, some of whom are not yet born, for generations to come.” There is no excuse for a group of billionaires to ask us all to pay more.
