The message to potential suitors of Liverpool is simple: if you have £4billion, then buy the club.
Because if Liverpool Football Club is supported properly from a business perspective then, much like Manchester United, it’s a license to print money. We are talking about a revenue-generating machine and I’d be staggered if, in a decade or so, whoever did buy it wasn’t sitting on an asset worth another £2.5bn on top of the price Fenway Sports Group are asking.
I’ve said a couple of times in recent weeks and months, most recently last week, that FSG cannot compete with sovereign wealth funds and that they need to be open at the very least to new investment.
We only need look at how a team which competed for four trophies last season are already out of the Premier League title race, barring a miracle, and face a hugely difficult task, given the way things are going, against Real Madrid in the Champions League.
It is clear Jurgen Klopp needs the financial backing to compete with Manchester City that FSG aren’t able to give him.
But it’s not just Liverpool supporters who need the Reds to be competitive, it’s the Premier League as a whole and it’s vital that my old club get things right. None of us want our top-flight to become a one-horse race for City or, in maybe two or three years, a two-horse race between City and Newcastle.
That’s because, with the greatest of respect to those two teams, if that is the rivalry in the Premier League in three years’ time, then the vast majority of people aren’t going to give a flying you know what about it.
Look, I know they are two very big clubs because I played against both, at Maine Road and St James’ Park, and I know how passionate both sets of supporters are. But the simple truth is that Liverpool and United underpin what the Premier League is in terms of it being a global juggernaut.
And if you take one or both of them out of the Premier League for whatever reason then the TV revenue would take a huge hit and possibly even be halved. They are the two clubs everybody wants to beat, they are the ones who fill the front and back pages – and that is important not only for the Premier League as a global brand but for global football, too.
When you think of La Liga, you don’t think of how real Real Betis, Sevilla or Villarreal have done, or even Atletico Madrid for that matter. It’s just, ‘How have Barcelona and Real Madrid been doing this season?’
When you think of German football you think, ‘Is there anyone who can compete with Bayern? Oh, that’s Dortmund, isn’t it?’ In French football it’s Paris Saint-Germain and then you think, ‘Could Marseille do something if they get their act together?’ It’s the same with Liverpool and United here.
They are the two biggest clubs and I would be staggered if a sovereign wealth fund or some seriously wealthy individuals didn’t come up with the funds to buy Liverpool. If they are bought quickly, or as quickly as these things allow, then there’s no way a new owner would look to change the manager.
And if someone came in tomorrow and said, ‘Jurgen, the club has been sold, there’s a project with £250million per window for four windows, go and take on Pep Guardiola’, you’d see the rejuvenation of Klopp overnight. If he could go again with a new cycle it would be huge for the Premier League.
The fact is that if Liverpool, or anyone else, are going to challenge City in the coming years they will have to spend £200m per transfer window until, a, you see Pep Guardiola off out of the country and, b, you’ve had the time to create a dynasty of your own.
