A takeover may be unrealistic now – after all John W Henry insists he’s at Anfield for the long haul – but the hope is the Boston Red Sox chief will agree to sell a stake in the Reds back to supporters.
“We always had two aims,†said football business lecturer and Reds fans Rogan Taylor who founded Share Liverpool.
“That was either buy the club outright or buy an unsqueezable minority to get us on the road to ownership.
“Clearly it would be pointless now to try to buy out the new owners who have only just bought the club and are serious about developing it.
“But a stake is what we’re after and we hope to have a detailed discussion with them about that early in the new year. We want to talk about the role fans might take in return for an unsqueezable stake in the club.â€
Since last summer Share Liverpool have been working together with fellow fans group Spirit of Shankly (SOS).
With their combined resources, Taylor believes they will be able to put on the table a very generous offer for Henry to consider.
“The combined membership of SOS and Share Liverpool is 60,000 plus in terms of the wider network it represents,†he said.
“If everyone wrote a cheque for £500 that would be £30m.That gives us an amount of cash to change the ownership structure of the club.
“We believe that would be beneficial for fans and beneficial for the owners as well.
“I’m sure £30million to £50million would be a useful down payment on the new stadium or it could swell the player recruitment account.
“We don’t care where it goes as long as we get an unsqueezable equity and a seat on the board.
“It’s a fairly straightforward idea and something they need to consider.
“After all why would they not want that money raised by fans? This is our fit and proper persons test and it’s much more rigorous than the one set down by the Premier League.
“If the owners don’t want a partnership with the fans then you have to ask ‘what are you doing here?’â€
