ShareLiverpoolFC believes in the democratic ownership of Liverpool Football Club by its fans.

The diagram below demonstrates how ShareLiverpoolFC will be structured to bring democratic ownership of the club to its fan shareholders.

A clear 'one-share: one-vote' structure ensures that no one ever owns more than anyone else. Share-holding fans will be able to vote – and stand - for election to a Fan Parliament and to the ShareLiverpoolFC Board. The ShareLiverpoolFC Board will be responsible for appointing the Board of the Football Club.

                                                                                        An Industrial and Provident Society

ShareLiverpool Limited has been set up as an Industrial and Provident Society (which is the structure used by co-operatives and housing associations) with the main object of strengthening the bonds between Liverpool FC and the community which it serves, and representing the interests of the community in the running of the Club.

                                                                             The Constitution

The ShareLiverpoolFC Constitution - formally approved by the Financial Services Authority - has been written to make us a democratic organisation with a permanent and binding commitment to community benefit. The cost of one share in the Society will be £500.

No-one will ever own more than one share and no-one will ever be able to take profits or surpluses out of the Society.

Our aim is to get to the point where, through ShareLiverpoolFC, the fan-shareholders own Liverpool FC, and the Club is run in accordance with 'the Liverpool Way'. It's a big aim and we may not get all the way immediately but we will take any appropriate step which forwards the prospect of ShareLiverpoolFC taking full control of the Club.

We want the Club to be successful on the pitch and to play a positive role in the community off the pitch. We want a commercially astute football club which generates sufficient income to provide the funds required for player purchases and other projects.

                                                          FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS  

Q. The plan assumes LFC can be bought from the current owners at £350m. Why this amount?  

Our proposals set out the type of approach and values we think are reasonable (ie those we would take into any negotiations with the current owners and their bankers).  £350 million should enable all current debt financing to be repaid – though that sum may have to be revised in the light of the current ‘restructured’ loan.

£350 million represents a premium over what was paid for the club some two and half years ago. As asset values in football, as in all other areas, are now significantly lower than they were in 2007, we certainly don’t think the value of the club is now any more than this.

Q. Why would the current owners sell to us?  

Well, we should say that the current owners haven’t been rushing to engage us in any discussions; we suspect that they still don’t take us seriously. However, it is clear from the media and our own assessment of the situation that they have been trying to sell the Club for some time and, given their situation and the way things have turned out, there are plenty of good reasons why they should want to sell.

The key issue for them is; are we a credible potential buyer? Credibility in this case really means: can we raise the money? Ultimately, that’s down to you, the fans – if you support these proposals and we raise the type of money we are talking about, then yes we are credible. Also, if we can put a realistic financial bid together, any other potential buyer is going to think twice about bidding against the fans. The real value in the club comes from the fans, so any other potential buyers might be better working with us rather than against us. 

Q. Who would actually run the Club if SLFC took control?

ShareLiverpoolFC is not proposing to manage the day-to-day running of the Club. Our objective is to acquire ownership and set the high level strategy and culture of the Club and to stop it from ever being bought and sold as some commodity again. If / when we gained control of the Club, we would expect that the then executive management would continue in place whilst we assessed their performance.

It would be our policy to employ the very best people available for the job. If somebody was doing a good job we would hope they would stay; if they weren’t, they would be replaced. We currently don’t have enough information to make informed judgements on any individuals. One of our first tasks would be to ask the Club's management to prepare a revised business plan taking into account our overall objectives.

The SLFC Board will appoint a representative or representatives from among their number to join the Club Board to ensure that the Club is run in accordance with the wishes of SLFC members. [see Diagram above] 

Likewise, the commercial investors would appoint representatives to the Club Board to ensure their interests are protected To regulate dealings between SLFC and any commercial investors, we envisage there being a formal shareholders agreement between both parties.  

Q. How will SLFC finance a new stadium? 

A bigger stadium is a necessity for LFC. Given the current situation we have an open mind as to whether it should be a new stadium or an extension of Anfield. The financing of a stadium (new or extension) isn’t that complicated, and whatever options are available to the current owners are also available to us.

 However, we would have a big advantage over the current owners in that the club would have a far stronger balance sheet than it has at the moment. The stadium hasn’t moved forward for the simple reason the current owners have not been able to raise the finance. They can quite rightly point to the lack of credit in the markets generally in the last year but the overriding problem for them has been that they saddled the Club and their holding company with too much debt to fund their purchase and running of the club, leaving no ability to raise further funds for the stadium.

Under ShareLiverpoolFC ownership, the Club would be in a far stronger financial position. We are proposing the repayment of some £250 million of bank debt; and significantly improving the terms on the remaining £100 million debt because of the injection of the new capital. With the financial strength of the Club much improved it would then be much better placed to raise the additional financing necessary to increase the capacity of the stadium (new or existing). Because the Club wouldn’t be saddled with having to repay other debt, the increased revenues from the larger capacity could be used for the repayment of capital and interest on the stadium borrowing.

Q. How will SLFC generate money for transfer fees? 

LFC is currently one of the best followed and most successful clubs in Europe. Unlike Man City (or Chelsea a few years ago) a new owner will not have to make extensive (and expensive) additions to the playing staff to take the club up a number of levels immediately on taking over the club. That said, we recognise that it is essential that LFC is able to compete at the top end of the transfer market ongoing. Our assessment is that LFC will be better able to do that from its operating cash flows than it is at present with the expensive short term debt that it currently carries. Our plans do not anticipate the need for material ongoing cash injections from its shareholders. We understand that this is the way that other clubs such as Man Utd and Arsenal operate and how Chelsea would like to.

Football is the same as any other business. If you want to spend money to improve your business, you either fund it from your income or you borrow to fund it, in the expectation that the improvement will increase your income and help pay back the loan.  

Q. What would any incoming commercial partners get for their investment? 

What any prospective joint venture commercial partner might seek to get out of their investment with us in LFC would depend on their own business plans; at this stage we can’t be any more specific than this. However, a lot of major businesses have invested in football clubs in recent years and a number are still actively looking. They all have their own reasons, some of which involve gaining access to the club’s fan base for cross selling or increasing their own global profile. We see no conflict in doing this in partnership with that same fan base. In fact we see this as a major advantage for a potential partner.

Q. How can we make sure that any incoming commercial partners are 'fit and proper'? 

Yes, of course we have to ensure that any partner is “fit and proper” In our opinion “fit and proper” covers a wide range of criteria from financial strength of the organisation to meet the obligations it takes on to the personal integrity of the individuals behind it. Whilst there is a process we would have to go through to assess any partner ultimately fit and proper is a matter of judgement. We would be setting high standards in any judgements we make.

Q. What rights are attached to a share?

There will be elections to the Board of ShareLiverpoolFC each year when one quarter of the Board will stand down or retire.

Shareholders would be able to stand for election and cast a vote in the election.

There will also be regular elections to a ShareLiverpoolFC Parliament, which will be a forum for around 100 members to express views about ShareLiverpoolFC and Liverpool FC, and will be used to form and test opinions on important issues.

Where very big issues arise, the Board of ShareLiverpoolFC may decide to seek the views of all members before making a decision.

Shareholders would have the right to attend members' meetings and to see and approve each year the accounts of ShareLiverpoolFC and a Report on performance. He/she would also have a vote on the appointment of auditors.  

Q. You talk about £100m convertible loan stock @ 2% - Do you have an agreement in principle with a bank for this? 

No we don’t have any agreement in principle for this yet. We see this as very much part of the overall negotiations.

Q. If I own £4,500 of loan stock, can I ever get my money back? Please can you explain exactly what owning this stock would involve and what returns I would receive? What would happen when I die? 

The loan stock bought by fans would be long dated, that is repayable by the club at some date in the distant future, probably in just under 50 years. So it would be like buying a corporate bond or Gilt. Whilst in issue it would pay annual interest of 2% to the fan owning it. This is a fairly modest but realistic return. We would expect fans to hold this loan stock long term and they would be able to leave the loan (and therefore the interest income on it) to who ever they wished in their wills.

We reduced the value of the shares from £5,000 to £500 to enable more people to participate and retain the principle of “one person one vote”. At the same time we need all those fans who can afford to subscribe £5,000 or more each to do so. So the loan stock has been introduced to enable us to do this and give some return to those fans that are paying more in.

 Q. Do you have financial forecasts available? 

We do have some financial projections for the Club, but as we can’t be sure these are based on complete information we are not publishing them. We believe that there has been some improvement in the commercial running of the Club in the last year and we see no reason why this wouldn’t continue to improve under our stewardship. Our proposals show that the fan holding company owning the interest in LFC would be financially stable and debt free (apart from the fan loan stock).  The financial performance of the Club is determined by three key income areas and two key expenses.  Key Income areas are:-1) Match day income 2) TV / media rights3) Other commercial activities including merchandising Match day income is currently restricted by the size of the stadium, TV & media rights are presently determined by collective deals controlled by the football governing bodies so these areas of income are fairly predictable. We believe that the Club has performed poorly on the commercial side for the last two decades and now lags behind some other major clubs. As mentioned above some signs of improvement have been seen but the club still has a lot of ground to make up. Key expense areas are:-  1) Player wages   2) Player transfer costs Individual player wages are largely dictated by the market place and so to some extent are out of the control of the Club. Taken as a percentage of Club income they are in line with other major clubs. We wouldn’t expect to see any material change in this trend. Player transfer costs depend on the transfer policy of the Club. Traditionally LFC has been a buying Club, we would like to see this continue.        

What we propose would probably start a revolution in Club ownership structures in the UK. But then, Liverpool fans have often been at the vanguard of changing the culture of football.