Forget Buying the Club, Let’s Buy Players
By: CSD | June 17th, 2008As I was reading about Seattle’s Membership Association and how you can have a vote on what goes on in the club for $125 a year, it got me thinking. Instead of pooling money together to buy the club like Share Liverpool FC, it would be more effective to pool money to buy players.
If you think about it, £20-30mil wouldn’t be that hard to raise worldwide. It would have to be very organized with some kind of board that selects maybe 5 players that the group would like the club to buy and then people could donate if they agreed with those choices. Once enough money is raised, the group could then go to the club and say, “Okay we have £25mil available to you if you’ll go after any of these 5 targets in the summer with the understanding that if they’re sold in the future, the money comes back to the group.” Then, the club can either take it or maybe make a suggestion about someone they would like to buy that’s not on the list and that suggestion could go back to the members for a vote on whether to allocate the funds for it.
People are really hard on owners these days for not shelling out big bucks of their own money for major signings. I don’t really blame owners for not wanting to continue to invest in a business year after year. Eventually the business, the club, needs to support itself on some level and show a return. There’s situations such as Liverpool where the club is doing okay, but really needs additional funds to remain competitive in the Premier League and the owners really don’t have the cash. I would be very surprised if Hicks or Gillette have more than a few million sitting in a bank at any given time. Their wealth is the American way of buying on credit then buying with credit from liens on assets that aren’t even paid off.
So why not have the fans put a little control into their own hands? I, for one, would definitely throw $100 bucks at a website if they were trying to go after players like Barry, Bentley or Villa. Hell, maybe they could get a t-shirt even. “I helped buy David Villa and all I got was this lousy shirt…oh and a league title as well.”
Going to the Liverpool game? Find out how to get to Liverpool and where to stay near Anfield.
Buy tickets to Liverpool games.
Category: 
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
      |
Comments | Add your comment
-
excellent idea, however who will be accountable for the collation and spending of the funds? embezzlement may come into play.
also another point to note is the wages. if a written agreement with the board and this *fingers crossed* community, that the board will cover the wages in full, then i see this as a very feasible idea.
this community however needs to have a say as to how much the selling of a “bought” player would be and accounts need to be handled properly to ensure every participating supporter that contributed to the purchase, gets their portion of the selling price.
there will be a lot of factors to consider in setting this up. hopefully this may turn possible, because Liverpool will then be very competitive in the market.
just my 2 cents worth =)
Posted from
Singapore
-
Sorry, but this is the stupidest football idea I have seen for a long time. For starters, the people with the most to gain from this are Hicks and Gillett - they bought the club so they could fleece the fans, and if those fans will fork out EXTRA money for improving the value of THEIR asset… they would be laughing all the way to the shiny new bank they would buy.
The fans are ALREADY paying for the players - do you think the owners rely on their own money to pay Stevie G’s £130k a week? When you pay £60 for a Liverpool shirt, do you think it costs £60 to make? Do you think the £40 a game you pay at Anfield pays for the stadium and lighting? Even the money you pay for pay-tv goes to the club (and Man U for that matter)!
We, the fans, already pay through the nose for the joy of watching Liverpool field good players. A scheme like this would improve the life of the owners who would then re-distribute the money the club makes through sponsorship, shirt sales and gate receipts to their hockey teams.
Sorry dude, but this idea just doesn’t float.
Posted from
Australia -
I think its a hell of an idea. you have my $100 bucks. the satisfaction of helping my club winning a title from a financial standpoint and a supporting standpoint would be amazing. no damn manc could ever say that. YNWA
Posted from
United States -
i cant agree with this idea as i think #2 is right, i would rather us fight againts this scums yanks and kick them out than actually helping them out. we noe its tough to manage a big club like liverpool but they should have knw this while
buying us. not enough the fans buying tickets, jerseys, television money now even the players we got to buy for them,hell noPosted from
Malaysia -
agree with Ian completely… Gillett and Hicks are like a cancer on our club. The players they have bought already (torres, babel, masch etc) wasnt with their own money, it was from the loan they took out against OUR CLUB. So, we are already paying for our own players, most people just dont realise it. They came to our club with promises of money and a new stadium, talked of understanding our heritage and understood that they were only custodians of our great club. And then they stabbed us in the back.
Not a personal dig, but i honestly wish you would talk about the fight against Gillett and Hicks a bit more to let people know how bad they are for us. We have supporters groups over here organising protests and demonstrations, thousands of supporters have agreed not to buy any official merchandise from the club so as not to line G&H’s pockets any more. You have quite a strong position, blogging from across the pond on quite a popular website and reaching many fans from outside the country that may not have heard so much or understand so much about what is going on at the club right now, and i just dont feel that the desperate position of our club is being put across.
Posted from
United Kingdom -
I’d love to hear more about Gillette and Hicks… I just started following football about a year ago and I’ve already become a die hard fan of the club. What have they done to ruin such a proud franchise? Please excuse me if I’m just an uneducated yank.
Posted from
United States -
If Roman was the owner Liverpool and was out of cash I would have galdly accept ur idea cause i m sure he doesnn post Personal expenses in the chelsea Financial Accounts!!!…but With the Yanks in possession…I think the idea of generating money for buying players is a stupid idea…they might just spent that money on their Personal expenses for the next couple of years!!!
Posted from
Australia -
Here’s another idea… what say the fans band together as you say, buy David Villa (the #7 is available!) for, say, £25m, he has a great season and then Hicks and Gillett decide to sell him to Chelsea for £50m - do you think that money would go BACK to the fans? Do you think it would go to new players? Or do you think they would plough it into their ice-hockey teams (as they have a history of doing)?
These clowns OWN the club - you buy them an asset and they can do whatever they want with it. They don’t care what we think of them. The only good thing Hicks has done since taking over is point out what a bad job Rick Parry is doing marketing the club. The only good thing Gillett has done is block Hicks, which is sort of self-defeating.Posted from
Australia -
Wow.. amazing how one person out of seven actually “got” the post. I must be a shitty writer.
Posted from
United States -
Just because only 1 person agreed with you doesn’t mean you are a bad writer.
The idea was clearly and concisely presented, just not practical under the current owners, whom the fans don’t trust (which you possibly didn’t take into account). You are looking at an “English club” from an “American asset” perspective.Posted from
Australia
Leave a Reply
If you have not commented here before, please take a moment to peruse ourCommenting Guidelines.
Home 
