What it means for Liverpool after FSG agree £200m deal

For Liverpool, delivering a successful product on and off the pitch has them walking something of a tightrope.

Ever since Fenway Sports Group acquired the club in October 2010 to end the ruinous regime of Tom Hicks and George Gillett at Anfield, a regime that had the Reds teetering on the brink of administration, there has been one constant theme.

While seeing football clubs as business can be somewhat unpalatable for fans, the reality is that without a successful business underpinning ambition and strategy, then there can't really be any kind of sustained success in the era of Financial Fair Play, regardless of whether sovereign states or oligarchs are at the helm. The rules have changed from what they were when new ownership groups arrived at the likes of Manchester City and were able to spend heavily to bridge the gap before FFP arrived.

For Liverpool, the growth was accretive for a number of years under FSG while they dealt with the fallout from the Hicks and Gillett era, but ever since the hiring of Jurgen Klopp in 2015 helped them shape their on-field product, backed up by a strategy that was built on investment in infrastructure, the growth has been exponential.

Success on the field leads to financial success, and vice versa. It is a virtuous circle that has been a boon to FSG and grown the club's brand and value over the 12 years since they arrived from the £330m purchase price to a current market value of around £3.7bn. That is a value that is set to continue to rise for some time yet and one of the reasons why FSG remain embedded in Liverpool for the long haul.

The Champions League and Premier League successes helped to accelerate the growth of the Reds at a time when some of the world's biggest clubs have regressed, such as Barcelona and Manchester United. Barcelona's regression was born from a reckless approach to spending money, while Manchester United's occurred through absentee ownership and a clear lack of strategy. That is something that has defined Liverpool's own success.

Speaking exclusively to the ECHO, Reds CEO Billy Hogan said: "You can’t count on success, but obviously over the last seven years we have been incredibly successful on the pitch and that certainly has a positive impact on everything that we do.

"The off-pitch work we are doing on the commercial side is hopefully helping the on-pitch matters. LFC has to be a sustainably-run club. The revenues we generate off the pitch have to feed on the pitch, and vice-versa.

"We have a strategy in the way we operate, and I think we are incredibly fortunate. When you think of the biggest sporting institutions in the world, Liverpool Football Club is in that conversation."

While the 4-0 friendly victory in Bangkok for Manchester United may have been met with gleeful celebration from some despite the plethora of players that appeared during 90 confusing minutes in the Thai heat, Liverpool were managing to leverage the growth of the football club off the pitch, inking a renewal of their main shirt sponsorship with Standard Chartered for another four years in a deal said to be worth upwards of £200m over the life of the contract. It is a deal that helps the club in the bid to grow revenues to re-invest in the product on the pitch.

It was the extension of a partnership that dates back to 2009 and a demonstration in the continued value that being associated with the Reds delivers, with the deal worth around £30m more per year than it was when it was initially signed 13 years ago.

"We focus on what we are doing as an organisation and a club, and one of the things we are most proud of is the long-term partnerships we do have," said Hogan. "That speaks to the impact the club can have for our corporate partners, and also the way that we operate. We believe in partnerships, we believe in relationships, and we believe it has to work for both sides."

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