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Liverpool seal £84m windfall thanks to FSG bargaining behind the scenes

Adam Williams

Thu 30 January 2025 18:45, UK

For a club with a six-point cushion atop the Premier League that practically sauntered through to the Champions League knockouts, there is an awful lot of debate around Liverpool’s owners at present.

For those in the world of football finance☂ who worship at the alter at the altar of Fenway Sports Group – and there are a lot of them – 2024-25 has been a season of vindication so far.

FSG will likely be celebrating the second Premier League🐼 title of their 15-year Anfield reign come May, with the Boston-based owners having managed the post-Jurgen Klopp interregnum magnificently.

But Liverpool’s relative lack of transfer market activity and the ongoing will-they-won’t-they contract soap opera has, in the eyes of some fans, taken the shine off Arne Slot’s achievements.

🅷That is emblematic of two of modern football’s most nauseating trends: worshiping player over club and spending records over silverware.

Of course, it will be a sombre day if any or all of ꦑMohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk leave Liverpoolဣ after their deals expire on 1 July, but it won’t be the cataclysm some believe.

Granted, Alexander-Arnold’s potential departure🐲 might be a rare FSG miscalculation, although there is little the owners can do if he is determined to join Real Madrid

But if the choice was between getting a fee for Salah and Van Dijkꦛ last summer or letting them run out their contracts while they simultaneously delivering the title, which would real fans choose?

ꦜRecruitment under FSG has been stellar, but it’s unlikely that Liverpool – who prefer to develop superstars, not sign readymade ones – could have signed the same level of player with the funds generated.

♛That said, it is understandable that some Liverpool fans are wary of FSG’s motivations on Merseyside.

Multibillionaire investment groups don’t buy a club out of altruism and 2021’s European Super League plot𒁏 showed that they are prepared to go against the fans if there is a business case for it.

🍌The threat of an introduction of a government-backed independent English football regulator, which has cross-party support and is making its way through Parliament, means FSG can’t repeat that insurrection.

💟However, there has been plenty of horse trading in European football’s smoke-filled backrooms since then and, regardless of what they say publicly, FSG are continuing to act entirely in self-interest.

💎More often than not, their self-interest and the interests of Liverpool as a football club intersect, but there are plenty of times where that hasn’t been the case too.

One of those was the introduction of the new Champions League formatও, which Klopp and Slot have both expressed their frustration at alongside official supporter groups like Spirit of Shankly.

• READ MORE: ♎£105m cut-off no issue for Liverpool and Arsenal as FSG and KSE set budgets ahead of deadline day

Liverpool cash in big-time from UEFA pot after FSG lobbying

The new Champions League🗹 format, which has seen Liverpool and their peers play two extra group-stage matches, with another play-off round to go before the knockouts, is a direct result of Super League.

♚UEFA introduced the so-called ‘Swiss system’ to placate clubs like Liverpool who were demanding either a bigger slice of the pie or simply a bigger pie altogether.

๊Despite last night’s 3-2 defeat to PSV, Liverpool topped the table in the new format and, as a result, have banked almost £84m from European football alone this season.

🍸For context, the Reds have now earned more for qualifying for the last-16 than Real Madrid did last season when they won the Champions League – and by a £13m margin too.

▨If Slot’s side go all the way this season, they could bank approximately £150m.

♛That is more than a handful of Premier League clubs earned from all of their revenue stream in the last financial year – and the TV deal that they rely on isn’t exactly modest.

• READ MORE: 🍨Liverpool owners FSG primed for £260m cash bonanza that easily smashes Mohamed Salah’s Saudi contract offer

New Champions League format may be key when FSG sell Liverpool

🔯Contrary to some hastily assembled conspiracy theories circulating on social media following the release of the Deloitte Football Money League, FSG have never taken a penny out of Liverpool.

♏Unlike their investments in the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins and NASCAR among others, they don’t skim profit off the top of the business.

Instead, their plan is one of capital growth.

🐻That means they will one day sell Liverpool for a profit,. But to get there, they need to demonstrate the viability of the business to a potential buyer.

ꩲLiverpool are already one of only a handful of English clubs who regularly post a surplus, but a few modest profits aren’t going to tempt a buyer into spending billions on the club.

🐎While wage and transfer inflation has been rampant in football in the modern era, FSG have been relatively restrained and revenue is rising faster than player expenditure.

🌺With new cost controls hoped to make football’s economy more sustainable, they won’t need to continually accelerate spending to compete with their rivals – at least, not at the current rate.

𒈔Extra Champions League revenue therefore, coupled with a maturing commercial operation and soaring matchday income, can tip the scales in terms of significant profitability.

𒁃And with the Premier League likely to get five or even six spots in the competition in future years, there is reduced risk for the owners too.