The by product of these improvements is the increase in value of LFC as a business or asset. The actual reason for doing it was to bring our stadium and training facilities up to par for a club of our standing.
The stadium work increases the number of fans who can watch our home games, it increases the noise, the atmosphere and support the club is renowned for all over the world. That 11th man we talk of just got a serious upgrade and another to come soon. The training ground gives us world class facilities. A place built to give the world class staff weāve assembled the right environment to do what they need to do to improve the players. It brings together the youth teams and the senior team and weāre seeing the benefits of this already. It was also something Klopp is on record of wanting to see happen and I know how much stock you put in Jurgen getting what he apparently says he wants.
You seem to focus on how it benefits them and not the club and for that reason you think they should pay for it out of their own pocket. If your workplace refurbished the office, would you expect the owner to pay for that out of his own pocket or for it to be an expense for the business? Because it sounds like youāre moaning about having to wait six months for a new desk chair to sit on whilst you work in the nice, newly refurbished office you get to benefit from every single day.
Liverpool Football Club is over a century old institution. Itās not a startup that needs constant injections of capital for loss financing. A club surviving on owner cash infusions is abnormal not vice versa.
Surely their point has been āpotentialā losses and how that affects the range of decisions being looked atā¦the bigger point has always been how those financial decisions fit hand in hand within the wider club strategy.
Iād say presumed losses they wouldnāt listen to counter arguments on. But the profits prior to that were over Ā£200m so the losses were never going to hit that. Why is it ok for us to run at a profit slowly meeting the needs on the pitch or even sometimes delaying till future years? But when we hit losses we have to worry about how FSG can cope? A comment above the other day argued with me how we can continue to operate in the market with when Ā£5m loss as we would have no cash.
We donāt need that. We paid off debt, kept interest payments low, carried on paying infrastructure payments. All while there was needs on the pitch the manager asked to be helped with.
FSGs reason for everything is to increase the value of LFC. LFC being successful on the pitch is the obvious way of increasing it. But the value in football is constantly increasing regardless. Running at profits but still able to compete.
The reason i think FSG are the best owners for us is that, for whatever motives, their targets are ours.
I agree ARD. It would be lovely if FSG put more cash into the club and also paid off all our debt. However, considering the range of owners in the PL and beyond, we have to be thankful (or at least relieved) that weāve got owners who appreciate the long term and are focused upon making the club work across recruitment, commercial and development and are not simply fixated upon shiny new signings. Compared to Hicks and Gillette or even Moores we have brilliant owners who, while clearly not infallible, have at least learnt from their mistakes and have benefitted from some inspired recruitment.
Thats a lot more than needed. All that was needed was a bit of a slowing down on the debt repayments LFC were making or declaring a little higher a loss. First would mean an small increase on the tiny level of interest we pay second would mean nothing as we are miles away from any issues with FFP. If we had added a CB at the start of the season even say Ā£40m over 4 Ā£10m annual payments at Ā£200k a week (over the top figures used) the loss for the year still would have been around Ā£25m well within what we could do. Weād have had to increase costs significantly more than that to come foul of FFP. Or we could have delayed some debt being paid off, maybe paid somewhere up to Ā£5m in extra interest but run at a small loss or broke even.
Could it be coincidence that once Billy Hogan was moved away from Commercial that our performance on generating commercial revenue picked up? Yes. Itās not, but it could be.
He was Commercial Director up until February 2017 when he became Managing Director.
At that point, our Commercial Revenues were Ā£137 million.
In 6 years under Hogan from 2011, he had managed to grow commercial revenue by Ā£60 million (from Ā£77.4 million in 2011). In the 3 years that followed (up to the pandemic) it grew by Ā£80 million to Ā£217 million.
Trophies maybe? On January 1st we were top of the league, still in the FA Cup and CL, by end of January we were still only 7 points behind City, weāve been behind by more this year. Bringing in a CB that summer or winter window could have been the difference between winning something and desperately securing 3rd when Chelsea and Leicester both unexpectedly collapsed over their last few games. There was no risk to paying debt off slower or declaring a larger (but still well within FFP) loss. The risk was the near Ā£100m in CL revenues we nearly missed out on. Thats the Konate and Diaz recruitments right there.
Yes but surely 60m on 77 is not inferior to 80m on 137? I understand 6 vs 3 years but youād know that many commercial r/ships have long lead in times so - just on the face of the figures - I donāt think the numbers are as damning as you suggest? Iām not commenting on the individual as I donāt recall/never knew any of the pertinent details.
Under Hogan commercial revenue grew 10% year on year. From 2017 to 2020 it grew 17% year on year. Thatās a fairly significant improvement. Iām not judging him on hindsight either - I consistently complained that our commercial revenues were lower than they ought to have been (not just under Hogan but historically too). Theyāre still slightly below where I think they could be (the FSM slice?) but at least theyāre tracking closer to our potential now.
Agree that our commercial revenues have been too low going back to the Party era and catching up with ManU is the clearest sign of getting our act together.
Failing to see the problem with this? The club is successful, we get the enjoyment of a winning team and trophies and the value of the club goes up. The facilities improve giving us a better base to work from and the value of the club goes up. So itās win-win.
Which begs the question why, when weāve done so much winning in the last five years based on the strategic and long term approach theyāve taken to recruitment, do you moan so much about one five month period in which we didnāt buy the centre back you wanted?
Iāve said before FSG are the best owners we could probably get. That doesnāt mean they are perfect.
Since we won the CL weāve been paying off debt incredibly quickly. Interest payments have been rock bottom because of this. Simple rule in business is that interest payments are lost money and you really want to avoid them. I understand that. But we donāt have the finances we have, the debts in question and that low of an interest unless its a strategic move to do so.
Since we won the CL investment in the squad significantly slowed down. We are now, 3 years later, competing on all fronts. That could have been much sooner. Last season we could have retained the league, we could have picked up an FA Cup or two over the last couple of years or more than this League Cup. We could have won another CL.
Itās grear weāve been successful and given us fans memories till the day we die. But with the manager, development of players, players, recruitment team and revenues LFC have we could have won more.
Focus does not appear to have been on maximising potential to win trophies but on being financially stable and paying off debt as quickly as possible despite massive, long term, projects like the stadium expansion and training ground moves.
I support LFC and want as many trophies as possible for Klopp, these players and us fans. I donāt care about the profitability of the club etc.! However I see FSG massively benefitting off owning us to the tune of hundreds of millions (much more than they paid for us and put into us combined) and the restrictions seemingly placed on us regarding how fast we need to pay off our loans from our revenues which make us more profitable that benefits them financially.
I focus on the CB issue as its the only one peoppe will seemingly accept we wanted as Klopp went on record and we are discussing the set of accounts from that financial year.
For me Thiago, Jota and Tsimikas or alternative options should have come in a year earlier at the latest. Yes we won the league that year but theyād have been fully bedded in for the following year, look how that second year is going with them? Then the following year (the one in question) could have addressed other issues like CB and possibly attacking depth.
Weāve seen that even Klopps teams get a bounce off new players coming in. I prefer that than FSG benefitting financially. As much as Iām happy with them as owners Iām not indebted to them enough to prefer their financial stability (not even loss) over our chances of silverware increasing.
Playing Devils Advocate there SHOULD come a time in the future when most/all extra debt is gone, revenues are still high and the stadium work is all finished when the ability to spend (self funded) of LFC is incredible, Real Madrid Galactico era style. But the problem with that is that tomorrow never comes. That future rosey picture has already been delayed (possibly past the time Klopp is with us) by Covid and who knows what will happen with that or the invasion of Ukraine or whatever happens next.
So for context youāre ignoring the fact we won the league after the Champions League, a global pandemic, an unprecedented injury crisis and everything Klopp has ever said about his personal views on transfers. Also that we did actually bring in Kabak.
