ShareLiverpool: Update E-mail received.

[meredithmathieson]

E-mail received, haven't seen posted elsewhere:

 

Dear friend,

 

Work is continuing on our quest to bring fan ownership of Liverpool FC, and I wanted to give you a quick update, as well as ask for your help.

 

Our formal proposal to enable ShareLiverpoolFC to be an investment vehicle to enable us to bid for the club is on the verge of approval by the Financial Service Authority (FSA). This is a complex, yet necessary step in the practical requirements needed, and we thank our specialist lawyers, Cobbetts, for their work on our behalf.

 

The heart and soul of Liverpool FC rests in L4, but Liverpool FC would not be the global force it is today without the support we have attracted all over the world. So we continue to take the concept of the fans owning the club to our international fan-base around the world. Members of the ShareLiverpoolFC steering group have been meeting with key contacts from Norway, the US, Republic of Ireland and elsewhere, and I myself have just returned from Japan, where I was able to promote the concept on Japanese national TV and radio.

 

In the UK, we continue to attract national and local media coverage, though we need to keep our message in people's minds as the saga of Hicks and Gillett's ownership rumbles on, and DIC await in the wings. Only fan ownership can bring the club management run in the interests of the supporters and the community.

 

This is where you can come in. We'd like you to get on the websites and forums and talk about ShareLiverpoolFC, and the concept of fan ownership. Where people are discussing the ownership of the club on phone-ins, please get on the phone and talk about it.

 

We're serious about this project - that's why we're taking the time to get it done properly. You can help us keep the momentum going. Tell your friends, and get involved - let's do this together.

 

Best wishes

 

Rogan Taylor,

 

On behalf of the Share Liverpool Steering Group

www.shareliverpoolfc.com

[Guest Prongsy]

I've been an opponent of this from the start, it's not going to work. But I wanted to give credit to Rogan Taylor because he's obviously a very caring fan and is trying for what he believes is right for the club.

[Guest Raisbeck]

I've been an opponent of this from the start, it's not going to work. But I wanted to give credit to Rogan Taylor because he's obviously a very caring fan and is trying for what he believes is right for the club.

 

Why are you opposing it?

 

Sure if you think its not feasible, but opposing it?

[Guest Prongsy]

Why are you opposing it?

 

Sure if you think its not feasible, but opposing it?

 

Yeah, I do oppose it and I oppose it quite strongly. I don't think it's feasible and I don't think it's what's best for the football club.

[Guest Raisbeck]

Yeah, I do oppose it and I oppose it quite strongly. I don't think it's feasible and I don't think it's what's best for the football club.

 

Care to explain why?

[San Diego Red]

Care to explain why?

Those involved take over the club and will then have to input more money for other reasons. Do you think that once they've got half of the club, the other owner will just spend money (for transfers etc) from his own sources without any sort of support from his partner(s)?

[Spike]

Yeah, I do oppose it and I oppose it quite strongly. I don't think it's feasible and I don't think it's what's best for the football club.

 

 

Good for you I'm made up that you're willing to do f*** all but judge others who are trying to do something worthy to keep the club you follow alive in the right manner

[Guest Raisbeck]

Those involved take over the club and will then have to input more money for other reasons. Do you think that once they've got half of the club, the other owner will just spend money (for transfers etc) from his own sources without any sort of support from his partner(s)?

 

What do you mean, "other" owner?

 

The aim of the scheme is to own 100% of the club.

[Guest Prongsy]

Good for you I'm made up that you're willing to do f*** all but judge others who are trying to do something worthy to keep the club you follow alive in the right manner

 

Oh b******s.

 

I've got a right to have an opinion on a group, any group, that want to buy the club I support. I think it's bad for the club, or at least not the best thing for the club, so I'm sure as f*** going to oppose it. I don't care if it's the fans, DIC, Americans or my own mum, if I don't think it's the best for the club, I'm going to say I oppose it.

 

As for this 'willing to do f*** all but judge' crap, if you think the only way you can do something is to support a fans group that firstly won't ever get the required money, nor finance the stadium in the short term, nor get Hicks to accept.

 

So you carry on living in fantasy land and insulting anyone that disagrees with you because it doesn't mean a f***, it'll all be over by the time shareLFC get a quarter of the money they believe is required.

[Guest Raisbeck]

Oh b******s.

 

I've got a right to have an opinion on a group, any group, that want to buy the club I support. I think it's bad for the club, or at least not the best thing for the club, so I'm sure as f*** going to oppose it. I don't care if it's the fans, DIC, Americans or my own mum, if I don't think it's the best for the club, I'm going to say I oppose it.

 

As for this 'willing to do f*** all but judge' crap, if you think the only way you can do something is to support a fans group that firstly won't ever get the required money, nor finance the stadium in the short term, nor get Hicks to accept.

 

So you carry on living in fantasy land and insulting anyone that disagrees with you because it doesn't mean a f***, it'll all be over by the time shareLFC get a quarter of the money they believe is required.

 

Could you just explain why sharelfc would be bad for the club, if in theory they achieved ownership at some point?

[ali]

Liverpool needs to be run by the fans

 

By Rogan Taylor - Sunday Telegraph

Last Updated: 12:44am BST 13/04/2008

 

 

 

Liverpool Football Club was once the very model of how a club should be run. It was fierce, secretive and pure - like a cross between the KGB and a nunnery - generous with its friends, implacable with its opponents. It delivered winning teams with a minimum of fuss, and its driving ambition forced it on to become (as it remains) the most successful club in the history of English football.

 

Now it looks more like an episode of Coronation Street. Those within the club bicker openly like garrulous fishwives on a pavement. With ownership split between two Americans who, we understand, no longer speak to each other except through lawyers, the plot is acted out in a kind of schizoid fantasy land.

 

 

All this in the few days following another epic European Championship victory at Anfield, as Liverpool defeated Arsenal to qualify for the semi-final of the most prestigious club competition in the world.

 

Clubs like Liverpool - and there are many others - feel like family to those who love and support them. The biggest may have 'international brands', which accounts for their attraction to multinational investors; but at heart the 'brand' is their fans and the history of their club. It can never really belong to anyone else.

 

It was that fundamental recognition of where true ownership lies that drove me to launch the Share Liverpool FC project. It struck me that the 'social sporting' club ownership model, made famous by clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid, would be eminently appropriate for a club like LFC.

 

Why not encourage the fans to buy the club? It has a huge fan base, sustained by one of the most intense relationships in the game. You only had to witness what happened at Anfield last Tuesday night to realise that this is a truly 'special relationship' between team and crowd. Why not at least ask the question: 'Is anyone out there interested?'

 

I asked friends at a design company called NavyBlue to put a website together quickly and held a press conference to announce the scheme. The sheer number of hits crashed the shareliverpoolfc.com website in seven minutes, at a thousand hits per second. It became clear very quickly that there is a huge appetite out there for this idea.

 

It's fairly simple in structure. Become a member/single shareholder of Share Liverpool FC with the purchase of a one-off £5,000 share. We'll all put our money together and buy the club. We probably need around 100,000 members out of the estimated 20?million Liverpool fans at home and abroad. Within a month, over 20,000 fans indicated their enthusiasm for the project. Our aim is to take over the club and elect an executive board to run it for a four-year term.

 

 

If they're no good, you vote them out next time. There will also be a 'fan parliament' of 100 representatives, also elected by the members, which will act as a sounding board for the executive - just as a similar assembly does at Barcelona. Then we can get on with running a successful football club with a real 'community' commitment. The fee for this column has gone to the Marie Curie Hospice in Woolton, Liverpool

[San Diego Red]

Say those who participate do get 100% percent control of the club, where are they going to get the money that will further progress the club (ie transfers, Stanley Park etc)?

Edited April 13, 2008 by Vorokin'

[Guest Raisbeck]

Say those who participate do get 100% percent control of the club, where are they going to get the money that will further progress the club (ie transfers, Stanley Park etc)?

 

If we have a well run, debt free Club to start

with, there will be money to buy players (how much do you think is spent servicing the Club’s debts?). Also the elected Board may wish

to raise money (as any business must sometimes). At Barca, very rich individuals

stand for election with promises of further investment. But it doesn’t mean they

‘own’ any part of Club.

[meredithmathieson]

As far as I understand it, but I'm not connected to shareliverpool, the money for the new ground will be from a loan, paid back through the increased revenues generated by the ground, plus any money left over after a takeover.

 

Don't see anything wrong with that.

 

Money for transfers? Well, we'll be saving £30 million a year on interest payments that the two liars have dropped on the club, plus there's no share dividends to be paid, so there's a start.

 

People who are blindly negative about this, I think, underestimate the sheer size of our club across the globe, and the fact that for a fan in say, Malaysia or Thailand, Norway or maybe even Ireland, what better way could there be to demonstrate your support for The Reds than to buy a share?

 

Plus, such a group are harder for Hicks & Gillett to ignore or bad mouth like DIC, as they are by definition your customers.

 

I've said before, that when shareliverpool 'go live' and start actively canvassing and colecting money, people who have just dismissed it as 'nice idea but it will never happen' will have to rethink, and there will come a tipping point where people realise that they need to jump onboard or miss the bus.

 

ps realise that I say 'ground' and not 'stadium': does that make me officially arlarse?

[Rimbeux]

Those involved take over the club and will then have to input more money for other reasons. Do you think that once they've got half of the club, the other owner will just spend money (for transfers etc) from his own sources without any sort of support from his partner(s)?

 

 

There is a myth perpetrated by the papers and other sources of received wisdom that ALL clubs rely on directors 'putting their hand in their pocket' to fund players etc. Its just not a matter of fact, and is actually far from common place at the top level, clubs pay their own way. The current turnover of LFC should be enough to sustain the current level of squad investment if there was no acquisition and associated other debts to service. The new ground should be affordable within the increased revenue. It wasn't money Moores lacked to see it through, it was courage, he didn't want the responsibility. We are already servicing the level of debt we would have had to take on to build the stadium, and but for opposition on the board, would be liable for the whole show as well.

[Guest Ant]

This will not work because a bunch of mates couldn't get together £5,000 without any return never mind the average fan.

 

The idea is good, but not the methods.

 

_____________

 

What needs to be established is a plan which allows for the average fan to contribute, and even then get some return and have the ability to sell it on.

 

How can a father of a family justify shelling out 5k to his missus, regardless of how good the cause is?

[muleskinner]

This will not work because a bunch of mates couldn't get together £5,000 without any return never mind the average fan.

 

The idea is good, but not the methods.

 

_____________

 

What needs to be established is a plan which allows for the average fan to contribute, and even then get some return and have the ability to sell it on.

 

How can a father of a family justify shelling out 5k to his missus, regardless of how good the cause is?

 

You can't make those statements as fact because you just don't know what people can and can't afford. A lot of people can't afford it, a lot of people can.

[johngibo YPC]

Say those who participate do get 100% percent control of the club, where are they going to get the money that will further progress the club (ie transfers, Stanley Park etc)?

 

They explain all this on the website. You clearly haven't bothered to read it. I think they at least deserve this before you criticise them. If then you still don't think it will work then fine.

[johngibo YPC]

This will not work because a bunch of mates couldn't get together £5,000 without any return never mind the average fan.

 

The idea is good, but not the methods.

 

_____________

 

What needs to be established is a plan which allows for the average fan to contribute, and even then get some return and have the ability to sell it on.

 

How can a father of a family justify shelling out 5k to his missus, regardless of how good the cause is?

 

10 of us have agreed to lash in £500 for one share

All of us have incomes below the national average.

[Guest Ant]

You can't make those statements as fact because you just don't know what people can and can't afford. A lot of people can't afford it, a lot of people can.

 

The Majority couldn't, and it's doomed to fail anyway.

The working class Liverpool Fan could not afford that, as well as financing a season ticket on the side.

 

This could all be blown up if they get the Money and Hicks wants more, then we need a few other people to chip in £5000, and maybe we might be looking at restructing the finance package.

 

Without going into too much detail I've heard a few alternatives to Rogan's plan and I prefer them over his.

 

Bottom line I just can't see this working.

[Guest Ant]

10 of us have agreed to lash in £500 for one share

All of us have incomes below the national average.

 

So essentially we need say 10,000 groups of 10 out of 100,000 to chip in £500, and possibly more?

 

What If I said to you, you could all do the same yet get a return on it?

[muleskinner]

The Majority couldn't, and it's doomed to fail anyway.

The working class Liverpool Fan could not afford that, as well as financing a season ticket on the side.

 

This could all be blown up if they get the Money and Hicks wants more, then we need a few other people to chip in £5000, and maybe we might be looking at restructing the finance package.

 

Without going into too much detail I've heard a few alternatives to Rogan's plan and I prefer them over his.

 

Bottom line I just can't see this working.

 

You don't know what any majority can and cannot afford.

[muleskinner]

The Majority couldn't, and it's doomed to fail anyway.

The working class Liverpool Fan could not afford that, as well as financing a season ticket on the side.

 

This could all be blown up if they get the Money and Hicks wants more, then we need a few other people to chip in £5000, and maybe we might be looking at restructing the finance package.

 

Without going into too much detail I've heard a few alternatives to Rogan's plan and I prefer them over his.

 

Bottom line I just can't see this working.

 

.

Edited April 13, 2008 by muleskinner

[Tones]

I would love to see this work. If run well, there will be no debt on the club, no huge interest payments and 100% of money made will be put back into the club. Whether they will ever get there or not i have no idea. I certainly dont have £5,000 to put into the club in one go. I would love to be able to though.

[Guest Ant]

You don't know what any majority can and cannot afford.

 

I know what I can afford

 

I know what the type of fan I would want having input in the club could afford.

 

Put it this way, the majority of the fans that I go the match with, the type of reds that some on this forum couldn't be in a million years, could not get £5000 between them never mind £5000 each.

 

IMO I don't believe they will reach their target, I think we are looking at fan representation on the board as the best option