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Trent Alexander-Arnold to stay on FSG owners’ payroll even if he quits Liverpool for Real Madrid
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Liverpool future has been framed as a fait accompli for months now, with Fenway Sports Group having seemingly lost out to the bright lights of Real Madrid.
With victory over Leicester City putting them within one win of the Premier League title and Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah’s deals sorted, the Alexander-Arnold saga is Liverpool’s one loose end in 2024-25.
The right-back way typically evasive in his post-match interview at the King Power Stadium, where his left-footed strike 15 minutes from time put Arne Slot’s on the precipice of glory.
Standing in front of a riotous Liverpool away section, he said: “Look, I’ve said all seasons I’m not going to speak on my situation, not going to go into detail.
“These days like today are always special. Scoring goals, playing and winning games, being close to winning titles, they are special moments that will live with me forever and I’m glad to be a part of them.”
The mood music at Anfield is that Alexander-Arnold is destined for Real Madrid, who are assembling a new panoply of Galacticos to rival anything Florentino Perez has done before.
In the context of high-end football finance, Perez’s approach to recruitment and retention could hardly be further from FSG’s.
John Henry, Tom Werner and Mike Gordon are obsessed with value. They don’t sign world-class players, they create them.
Real Madrid have switched their focus to a younger player profile in recent years but their heart’s desire is still oven-ready superstars. After Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappe, is Alexander-Arnold next?
Unlike their counterparts in the Spanish capital, FSG also have far more fidelity to their wage structure.
The FSG view? It’s within their means to offer stupid money to any player who demands it, but it’s not in their interests. Excessive spending, as Man United and others have shown, begets excessive spending.
That’s not to say they aren’t competitive in the wage department – far from it. Liverpool paid players and staff £386m in the last financial year, the fifth-highest in world football.
However, the wage bill has risen in lockstep with revenue. FSG don’t spend what they don’t earn, and the wages-to-turnover ratio at Anfield has barely deviated from 65 per cent for years now.
In the case of Alexander-Arnold, it may be that the 26-year-old has simply crossed the event horizon and there is nothing FSG could have done to stop him being pulled in by the Bernabeu’s gravity.
Ultimately, however, it’s academic. The Boston-headquartered owners would never have compromised their business model for one player, hometown hero or not.
But football finance is a small world and, as it happens, Alexander-Arnold will still be in FSG’s orbit even if he is Real Madrid-bound.
- READ MORE: Liverpool at heart of £8.5bn takeover masterplan after what FSG have agreed with Texas investors
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s business links to FSG
If and when he arrives in Madrid, two of Alexander-Arnold’s new teammates will be club owners.
Kylian Mbappe became the majority shareholder of Caen last July. Incidentally, they have just been relegated to French football’s third tier. More recently, Luka Modric has taken a stake in Swansea City.
In September last year, Alexander-Arnold was reportedly keen on becoming a club owner himself.
He was linked with an £84m deal to buy Nantes by L’Equipe, who also suggested that he had been interested in fellow French sides in Saint-Etienne and Le Harve in 2024.
That story was kyboshed by the owner of Nantes, as well as reports in the UK. However, Alexander-Arnold is indisputably involved in projects with aspirations in football club ownership.
Companies House records show that his father Michael and brother Tyrone are both involved with several UK firms in sports management and investment space under the Alexander-Arnold name.
Trent himself meanwhile is a director of All Star Sports, which appears to be an investments company with about £2.1m of working capital and £3.5m in long-term receivable income.
Alexander-Arnold is also an investor in Otro Capital, a New York-based private equity firm focused on sports, media and entertainment investments.
He was part of the contingent that invested around £170m into Alpine Racing, the Formula 1 team, likely as a limited partner who will receive a cut of the profits the company makes.
Otro also lists Kansas City Chiefs duo Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, Masters champion Rory McIlroy, heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua and former Manchester United star Juan among its investors.
Significantly, Otro were once linked with a takeover of Ligue 1 side Toulouse, who are owned by RedBird Capital, who in turn are major shareholders in Fenway Sports Group.
In fact, Otro are a spinout company of RedBird itself, whose board is led by former RedBird executive Alec Scheiner.
Otro’s interest in Toulouse was said to be a way for RedBird to bypass UEFA’s rules on multi-club ownership as RedBird own AC Milan, who were also competing in the Europa League at the time.
That means that event if he does leave for Real Madrid, Alexander-Arnold will still be in RedBird and FSG’s value chain and, by extension, Liverpool’s.
It’s a quirk which is emblematic of the tightening Ven diagram between clubs, multi-club ownership structures, investment firms, and players themselves.
Liverpool’s wage budget compared to Real Madrid’s
Liverpool’s outlay of £387m on wages in 2023-24 was surpassed by Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
For a season in which Liverpool did not play Champions League football, which would have seen that figure rise significantly with bonus payouts, £387m is a huge figure.
But Real’s wage bill was still considerably higher than the Merseysiders’.
The 15-time Champions League winners paid out £424m throughout the season, compared to £465m at City and an astonishing £553m at Paris Saint-Germain.