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FSG are sitting on ‘goldmine’ from Jurgen Klopp exit as £50m Liverpool deal is key

Adam Williams

Fri 13 December 2024 17:45, UK

Liverpool are an outlier in having replaced a manager that had become an institution and not spiralled into chaos – the appointment of Arne Slot is looking like a masterstroke from FSG.

In many ways, Slot is a continuity candidate from Jurgen Klopp, who won eight major trophies in nine seasons at Anfield. Klopp has now joined Red Bull as their ‘Head of Global Soccer’

Slot’s Liverpool are top of both the Premier League and the revamped Champions League tables and are undefeated in 18 in all competitions.

They have faced Real Madrid, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Aston Villa in AC Milan in that remarkable run. Although, they are still some way short of Klopp’s record 44-matche unbeaten run.

But Klopp is arguably on Liverpool’s Mount Rushmore alongside Bob Paisley, Bill Shankly and Joe Fagan, and his legacy at the club goes well beyond the tiles he won in L4.

He arrived at the club five years into the premiership of Fenway Sports Group, who took over from the Hicks-Gillet regime for £300m when the club was in crisis.

Since 2010, Liverpool’s revenue has tripled and profits, in stark contrast to almost all of their contemporaries in the Premier League, have totalled £153m over the last decade.

However, FSG are polarising at Liverpool because of what some bedrock supporters consider to be their overly conservative, commercially-focused approach to running the club.

This view has been on full display during the contract saga involving Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, and Trent Alexander-Arnold – three stars most clubs wouldn’t think twice about giving a blank cheque.

The riposte from FSG, who in the football finance industry are among the most respected operators in the world, is that their approach is sustainable and helps Liverpool punch above their weight financially.

Part of FSG’s grand vision is to exponentially expand Liverpool’s global footprint, monetising casual fans and turning them into fanatics who could one day visited Anfield and engage with the club financially.

Pre-season tours are an important and extremely lucrative part of that.

Liverpool can comfortably earn an eight-figure sum from an overseas tour. There are plenty more abstract brand benefits that are harder to quantify but just as valuable to the club’s commercial department.

And news this week has suggested where the Boston-based owners are steering Liverpool’s pre-season strategy.

• READ MORE: Liverpool owners FSG make £550m move that blows Mohamed Salah’s contract demands out of the water

Liverpool visiting ‘goldmine’ for pre-season next year, says finance expert

Ahead of pre-season for 2024-25, Liverpool visited the United States, where they played a series of exhibition matches against the likes of Man United and Arsenal.

They have visited the US in many years gone by but, under Jurgen Klopp, elected not to stay as long as some other teams.

The reason? Klopp wanted a football-focused pre-season camp in Europe to take precedence, with sporting preparedness prioritised over commercial opportunity.

Under Slot, who does not yet have the same leverage at Anfield yet, FSG don’t have this problem.

And the are now reporting that Liverpool are considering jetting out to Japan and Hong Kong next summer with Slot at the helm.

That market, as one expert points out, is perfect for Liverpool given their new partnership with Japan Airlines and their £50m-a-year deal with Standard Chartered, whose business is mainly in the region.

“People don’t realise just how big Liverpool are in Asia,” Kieran Maguire, author of the Price of Football and football finance lecturer at Liverpool University, told TBR Football.

“There are the links with Standard Chartered and a lot of attraction to the brand.

“The region is a goldmine as far as FSG are concerned. The owners are financiers first and their interest in football is very much secondary.

“From their point of view, Liverpool is a franchise where you have to maximise revenues – and this is a huge opportunity.

“So they will certainly have done their homework in the character assessment of Slot when it came to who was the right person to recruit.

“He will need a couple of years to get his feet under the table before he can start making demands. That wasn’t the situation with Klopp.

“So all the ducks are in a row as far as Liverpool and FSG are concerned.”

• READ MORE: Liverpool investors link with oil billionaire as £4.2bn-valued deal shows what future holds for FSG

How much can Liverpool earn on a pre-season tour?

Liverpool don’t break down how much they earn specifically from pre-season tours in their accounts.

But, with some deduction, we can take an educated guess.

Man United, a club of comparable size and stature, have previously revealed that they can earn as much as £12m from a single tour.

That is just in promoter fees and other commercial tie-ins.

But where the real value lies for clubs like Liverpool is engaging with existing overseas fans and, hopefully, converting more to the supporting the club.

The international fanbase is orders of magnitude bigger than its domestic equivalent and, as alien a concept as it might seen to bedrock fans, that is where FSG are seeing pound signs.