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If Not FSG, Then Who?

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IN recent weeks I have found myself in a number of discussions concerning our American owners FSG, with the vast majority of these ending in a good old Mexican stand-off! No retreat no surrender!

If you have read any of my stuff previously you will have concluded that besides being incredibly handsome, witty and cool, I am willing to stand by my opinion and argue it out, which lead to a comment being made that I would argue the colour of faeces (this wasn’t the exact word used), to which I suggested drinking blue Wkd and see what happens – but that is another story from my haze filled Uni days (that were obviously filled with hard graft and study if you are reading Mum).

Throughout these discussions I presented a counter question of ‘If not FSG, then who?’. This is something that I want to expand on here and present 3 different proposals with 3 different hats on (love a wardrobe change). Here we go….

Show me the money honey…

Besides being a quite excellent 80’s cereal advert pun, the title suggests that the answer to all evils is money. Of course it is. What isn’t made better by having money figuratively poured in?

In terms of football, the ‘Sugar Daddy’ investment has seen Chelsea and Manchester City turned on their head. Each of these clubs have their own history, their own story, but let’s face it; they are not Liverpool Football Club! We must be a ‘Sugar Daddy’ wet dream: a long and glittering history, a passionate fanbase, a world-renowned atmosphere and given our current plight, the opportunity to act as saviour. Gone are the toxic debts of the cowboys, so financially the club is healthier than a couple of years ago, with men easier to deal with and less repugnant than those previously, so bring it on.
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We are Liverpool Football Club, we deserve the best. We are a club that comprised the ‘best midfield in the world’ without mega bucks and attract world class stars such as Suarez without Champions League football to offer, imagine if we had oil money! A super rich owner would effectively have a Football Manger choice of who they wanted: ‘Suarez is good, but hey let’s play him up top with Messi’.

We already have the lure of Liverpool Football Club, but combine it with the dollar signs and what can stop us? Thank you FSG for stepping in and snatching our club from the poisonous fingers of your fellow yanks, but we are Liverpool Football Club, we don’t build for the future we make it. I’m sure you can sell for a nice profit, but I want the cream of world football here now not potential that may be good in the coming years.

Gamble Gamble Gamble….

Deal the cards, Spin the roulette, let the horses go! It was Robert Kennedy who said ‘Only those who dare to fail can ever achieve greatly’ and a certain T S Eliot who stated ‘Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go’ (a little class to proceedings, no?). Let’s face it, in our time of need there was only FSG to come bidding and they aren’t going to sell anytime soon. But they need to realise that we are Liverpool Football Club.

Our history is littered with sparkly cups, dominance and glory; we shouldn’t be sat around waiting for players and managers to come good. They should learn their trade elsewhere and then come to us to achieve greatness. I get that FSG are no Mansour or Abramovich but that shouldn’t matter. We are continually told that our marketing potential is huge, that we are a global brand – well let’s exploit that. We have the Leeds, Portsmouth’s and Malaga’s of this world to use as a template of what not to do – we need to speculate to accumulate.

Before January let’s bring in Guardiola and give him a warchest that would make Long John Silver blush. If we have the right manager and the right players the loans we take to pay for them will be taken care of with winnings! Look at United, billions in debt but give RVP £250k a week and a £25m fee paid. Look at Real with the Beckham’s of this world and then the Ronaldo’s!

If it doesn’t work, well we are Liverpool Football Club, like Real and Barca we won’t go bust as we are too bigger name, too bigger a history for that to happen. It’s about time for the Liverbird to rise again.
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Steady as she goes….

These last few years have been interesting to say the least. The club has been dragged through the Crown Court, threatened with liquidation and displayed far too many public spats at managerial and boardroom level. The fact that the club remains competitive is credit to all involved.

The challenge now is how to move forward and rebuild. A quote from Roman times for you: ‘Reason and clam judgement, the qualities specially belonging to a leader ‘ (do these quotes make me seem impressive, or a wally? I’m going for the latter).

Calmness is needed from the manager and the owners, we are riding through the storm and clear skies are in view – do we really want to plunge the club into insecurity once more? The old adage of Rome wasn’t built in a day is applicable here, after what we have seen these last 2 or 3 years we can’t suddenly expect immediate success.

The reality is the club needs to stabilise and move forwards. Stability is synonymous with success, our greatest period in history was off the back of stability, a winning recipe was created by Shankly and improved upon by those who followed. Although I hate to say it, United have stability and that has brought success, as have Arsenal albeit theirs is more relative.

What we need right now is patience and the owners to have faith in the man they appointed and back fully. The club is great because of our history, so we need to look at what made us great and use that as our blueprint going forward. Our club has soul, history and character, is any of that worth sacrificing for immediate success?

What do I think? Who wouldn’t love a Sugar Daddy, but is the danger of the club losing its soul a risk worth taking? Almost a philosophical question that one! I know a lot of City fans, and generally found them an utterly lovely bunch with a wonderful self-deprecating humour, but the influx of ‘plastics’ is changing that perception.

Am I a fan of gambling with the clubs future? No I am not. Look at Rangers if anyone thinks we are too big to go bust. My personal preference is to build sensibly and self-fund.

Is this FSG? In parts yes, and in other parts no, at the moment. We will know more of their true intentions come February. They have to show faith in the man they chose and they appointed and in our current state they may well need to dip into their own pockets in the short term. But hey I will still flutter my eyelids at passing oil barons!

Let me know what you think is the way forward, or if you have an argument different from those I have raised I would love to hear it on here on @timdibs on twitter.

AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SIGN THIS AND GET YOUR MATES TO SIGN THIS https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/40925
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46 comments

  • patrick says:

    I wouldn’t want Liverpool anything like Chelsea or City. When Liverpool win the league it will mean more than just buying it like any club with dirty oil money etc can do. Another thing, with that kind of money comes mercenaries that aren’t playing for the club.

    • Francis says:

      dont be stupid . no money then we win nothin

      • Tim Williams says:

        Really? By my reckoning, the cost of our starting 11 in 2005 was around £35m. It is about the right investment! The club needs the right investment to be successful and whether that be £20 odd million on a Suarez or nothing on a Mcallister to improve the team so be it.

        Money is so misleading, one of the best goalkeepers ever, Schmeichel had total transfer fees that did not add up to over £1m

        • bob says:

          ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous. name me 1 team since the premier league started ( thats when money became a major factor ) that has won the league without high spending . answer : none

          since champions league started , name me 1 team who has finished in top 4 without spending fortunes ? answer : only 1 – everton 2005

          its common sense if that wasnt proof enough . why do barca + real always finish 1st + 2nd ? because they buy the best players . even a child knows that . now we might get lucky and find a 2.5m gem like hyypia once in a blue moon but it doesnt happen very often

          its just fantasy (or gross stupidly )to think you can win without big money

        • Tim Williams says:

          ok Bob, the team United had to start winning the premier league that kick started their brilliant off field marketing to make them the richest in the world was not expensively gathered! remember the Hansen phrase ‘you dont win anything with kids’? that was because they used Beckham, Nevilles, Giggs, Sharpe, Butt, Scholes. That investment in youth with shrewd buys like Schemichel and Cantona gave them a solid foundation. Have Arsenal invested heavily or shrewdly?

          Liverpool have never spent fortunes but consistently finished top 4, rafa bought wisely and the lack of spending big/right when in his charge cost us.

          Who are Barca’s best players? Xavi, Messi Iniesta? how much did they cost them?

          Also, money does not guarentee success! Malaga, Portsmouth, Leeds have shown this. Blackburn threw money in the early 90’s, where are they now? RM in the beckham era and all that money spent won 1 league title. Money spent is pointless, its about investing properly. Mcallister and Degen arrive don free’s but had vastly different impacts. Torres cost about 20m and so did downing….Proper scouting, proper negotiations and correct investment is how to progress if you dont have a sugar daddy.

  • ste says:

    It is so frustrating when you see failed little clubs being bought by Billionaires and simply buying what they were abjectly inacapable of ever achieving, its obscene, one of the main men to blame here is David Moores, he should have sold to DIC but no at the last minute took the extra couple of quid per share from those other two scumbags.

  • Red says:

    Why not make it a public listed company?

  • Dave says:

    You never know, you might get your wish.
    FSG were NEVER in it for the long long term and will sell if the price is right as they are out of their depth. Honeymoon with the fans is well and truly over and I can only see the fans’ resentment towards their amateur running of the club growing.
    Henry’s businesses have also taken a bit of a hit.
    There’s been mutterings on twitter of Amanda Staveley and the Qataris being interested too.
    If that’s true I’d bail out now with a massive profit or some small shareholding left in the club and count the profit for doing nothing.

  • HERBIE says:

    With the new reegulations that will come in place the next couple of years, where you spend within your income, we should be able to compete at the top, and with city, chelsea and united paying astronomical wages, they will struggle to offload unwanted players with high wages (we have joe cole and look how hard it is to get rid,) so with our commercial revenue increasing year by year, and our youth development churning out 1st teamers, We are in good shape, but patience is a must for brendan rodgers, he should have 3 years to mark his stamp! Aslong as every year we see improvements, but if it doesn’t work out (hopely it does, I believe) maybe we have a future manager in rodolfo borrell, but all ifs and buts, The Future’s Good, The Future’s RED! Y..N..W..A jft96!

  • Bill says:

    I want DIC to come in for the club.

  • Jack The Lad says:

    It’s my opinion anyways that judgment on FSG should at least be witheld until the end of Jan.

    • Tim Williams says:

      same here! nthey need to understand that in a player like Suarez, he means more to the club than merely a playing asset. Football is more emotional than a normal business.

  • NJRedsFan says:

    It’s good to know that FSG are being transparent enough to share their long term business stratagies with fans like Dave

  • Francis says:

    if not fsg , then who ?

    ANYBODY ,F*IN ANYBODY

    get the greedy fkin yanks out , they are ruining us

  • bob says:

    clearly the first 2 options are preferable – we are liverpool , 1st is everything 2nd is nowhere . the 3rd option is for those guys who like a quiet one down the local on a saturday night wearing cardigans , while sipping a light ale during a discussion on the next lib dem manifesto .

    clearly FSG are in it to make money , even a blind man can see that . do they care about LFC ? dont be naive . do they want LFC to be successful ? yes in order to make money .

    but they cant do it . heres why – their plan involves copying the arsenal model , living within budget , cutting wages , cautions transfer fees , cheap young manager , bringing through youth instead of buying proven players etc etc

    arsenal have one of the best ever managers , a fantastic youth set up for 15 years , produced many world class talents and they still cant compete with the money clubs . when they do get a top player from their youth he wants to leave for a serious contenter after a season or 3 anyway . fact is utd ,city ,chel buy the best players therefore they have the best team , thats a fact

    another reason why FSG wont succeed is they have shown a level of incompetence only ever shown before by the blackburn owners – hiring comolli , wasting so much money on poor players , sacking KD when his players were in place , hiring a young unproven manager , leaving their unproven manager stranded with 1 striker etc . they dont have a clue how to run a club

    there will be plenty of rich rich investors who would jump at the chance of a global brand like us . FSG WILL fail , it is totally inevitable , even impossible not too . i just dont see the point in waiting 3 or 4 years to see it happen

    • Tim Williams says:

      Is following the Arsenal model (to an extent) a bad thing? In terms of investing heavily in youth should be what teams do. the problem with Arsenal is that they can not keep hold of their top stars because of their reluctance to bring in top established players and their odd wage structure in which they believe in equality (RVP was on a similar wage to Chamakh by all accounts).

      As a club we have started to show by hook or by crook an investment in playing time for youth as well as kepping hold of our established stars (without CL). What FSG have to do next is build on the squad with established stars coming in, and this is their next challenge.

      I cant quite get my head round why anyone thinks it is a good idea to gamble with the clubs future. Do you not seen the plight of Leeds or Rangers?

      Where were the plenty and plenty of rich investers 2 years ago?

      Have the made mistakes? yes, are they perfect? no do they need to learn? yes.

      • bob says:

        sick of repeating myself but i have already explained why its impossible for liverpool to go the way of those clubs . worst thing possible is administration and new owners get liverpool cheap . that sounds fine to me

        • Tim Williams says:

          ok Bob, answer this question, how many investers were beaten away by FSG? or were they the only one?

          Rangers were a huuuuuuge club, massive history, guarenteed at least some domestic success every year, massive fanbase, huge marketing potential. they dont exist anymore.

  • Turner says:

    Yanks must go , we need real money to compete . i would rather be in debt than be also rans forever .

    Imagine the next 7 years being like Everton ?

  • stevo says:

    Wow. What a stupid post. Wanting man city and chelsea style takeover. I’d rather wait another 5 years investing in young players than go for over paid players who are only here for the money. Oh and don’t forget kenny’s and comolli’s mess last summer. All these players would have joined liverpool if we approached them. Falcao instead of carroll. Atletico madrid or liverpool? Easy choice. Mata instead of downing. Mata was interested in joining but kenny preferred downing. Cazorla instead of hendo. Cazorla would have been way more interested in us than malaga. Cabaye instead of adam. A player who had a huge influence in lille winning the league. None of these players would have cost more. Can you imagine
    Reina
    Johnson skrtel agger enrique
    Lucas/cabaye gerrard
    Mata Cazorla suarez
    Falcao

    That’s a title challenging team and that could have been possible if that major mess of buying players didn’t happen.

    • Tim Williams says:

      how do you know that last summer mata would have joined us ahead of the money and CL offered by Chelsea?

      my understanding of cazorla was that he was to sign for Arsenl but Malaga trumped them. Could we have competed with the money of Malaga? with no CL?

      Falcao is an older issue sadly frequent under Rafa’s days and his lack of backing. As for Cabaye, we would be naive to think LFC werent aware of him but for whatever reason didnt think he could cut it in this league (like many other teams) Newcastle took a risk and it paid off. good for them.

      I agree that I want players to sign for LFC because it is LFC and not because of the money we offer, but it needs to be intelligent investing and not just throwing money at the problem.

  • Jim H says:

    Absolutely nailed on. I see those commenting here who still don’t want FSG don’t bother addressing your question – Well I will: There isn’t anyone, FACT!

    FSG got a very good deal with the takeover, gambled before with Dalglish (who, although being an absolute permanent living legend, wasn’t good enough), & there is copper-bottomed evidence that they are trying to increase the value of LFC as well!

    They have also said themselves, that it is as if they are trying to turn a super-tanker, which brings another metaphor into play, but more importantly, who can refute that idea?

    No-one; which is why this piece is superbly articulated

    • scott says:

      You are stupid . Loads of people would come in for one of most famous clubs in world soccer

    • bob says:

      you are talking rubbish . liverpool needs to be put up for sale then investors would react . nobody bids for clubs unless they are for sale . a potential buyer must know the price , do due dilligence etc which is not possible if its not on the market

      a lot of people talking finances here that dont have a clue

      • Tim Williams says:

        That’s good bob, thank you for explaining the process for sellin the club. The question posed is what sort of owners do you want….I have given 3 options, if you think of a fourth then let us know, and support your theory

  • jim says:

    I think these “Yanks” are an entirely different bunch to the last lot, and i think to just automatically lump them in with Hicks and Gillet is wrong.

    If loads of other people want to buy us, where are they?

    • breslan says:

      they r the same . rich yanks who want to make money out of my club .if anything they may be less capable than the others .

      • Tim Williams says:

        bar Mansour and Abramovich, what owners are not in it to make a profit??

        Less capable?? what did H&G do? they nearly destroyed us with high interest loans, using the club to pay the interest only payments. H&G making a profit from us involved them not spending a penny of their money and pocketing any profit! FSG seem keen to make money the right way by running a business properly. As football fans this can be hard to understand but at the very minimum they are not loading us with toxic debts

        • bob says:

          did you get your weekly cheque from FSG yet ? i dont know you but i would bet my mortgage that your not in business or self-employed ? . i do work in the financial sector and i can tell . you dont know what you are talking about , complete and utter nonsense is all your spouting out

        • Tim Williams says:

          Again your comments are very quick to put me down but never actually do you support your point with any rationale.

          You work in the financial sector but are keen for Liverpool to get in debt it doesn’t matter as someone will bail us out because we are Liverpool? What approach is that? Hmmm what state is the country in at present??

        • Tim Williams says:

          And a side point, is this a pro-FSG piece?? Or simply presenting different options

  • bob says:

    ive said before you are blind or stupid ( or both ) . i have explained those points previously , i could produce a 180 page dossier on the reasons but you would argue against them because you want to see things your way , in your own little positive fantasy way

    its like a psychiatrist telling his patient the giant green rabbits he sees are not real . whats the point ? he sees them , he believes in them

    you dont see reality , you shouldn’t be writing . im also beginning to feel people outside liverpool dont have the passion and the desire of scousers . im not going to debate with a person who only sees what he wants to believe

    • Tim Williams says:

      Yet again bob you have proffered a lengthy reply but failed to raise a single argument! Please share at least 5 pages from your 180 page dossier!

      You seem convinced that my nights are spent dreaming of FSG and that I consider them the best thing since sliced bread! The reality is my opinion on FSG is reserved, I have raised previously plus points and negative points of their reign, but I’m not sure how that is ‘fantasy’. They have done positive things and they have also done negative points, surely this is undeniable??

      My role as a writer for this site, which I enjoy immensely is to stimulate debate and offer up my own opinion and that appears to be successful no? Job accomplished?

    • Tim Williams says:

      Also your geography argument is very very poor! Physical location has nothing to do with passion or desire for ones football club. How can I make such a statement you ask?? Well people respond not just on here but on twitter, in fact moreso on twitter. The responses I receive are not only global but a lot from those in and around the city of Liverpool. I see passion and desire in all and I see strong opinions on both sides. Beauty of the sport is the differing opinions. You obviously disagree with me which is cool, I just wish you would present your arguments and enter a discussion as opposed to put downs!

  • Hi admin. This is the best article so far today that I have encountered, hopefully there will be more personal loan articles to be posted here to inform us on how to apply for personal loan and what to watch out from agencies. Thank you.

    • Tim Williams says:

      Either this is a piece of writing so highly laced with sarcasm and an wit my feeble mind can not process or an element o trolling!! I’m intrigued either way….I hope your actual name is Personal Loan

  • Jim H says:

    Unbelievable Tim, you know how good I think this is..

    If it was my blog, I’d just remove the idiotic trolls who couldn’t articulate an argument in a class room exercise – let’s have some names of better quality owners, you cretinous deludes!

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