Topic: Share Liverpool fc Do we Know if they are ready to make a bid?

[pompeyred]

Not heard from rogan taylors group for a few months just wondering if there ready to pounce on this opertunity.
i could probably get a £5k loan to do my bit lets do it.

[Jase]

Unfortunately, I don't think they'd be capable of it. For the emails that they send saying that they're ready, I just don't see that much hard evidence of it. If I see Rogan walking around today with a massive Nike holdall, then I might change my mind.

[DonkeyWan]

Unfortunately, I don't think they'd be capable of it.

Don't even want them to be honest. A low profile owner who runs the club as a club, not some sort of funhouse for the fans. All this 'run our own club' is bollocks imo, 100,000 unqualified fans pulling the club in whatever direction their fancy takes. No thank you.

[JohnBarnesBigToe]

Unlikely to be honest.

I’m not sure it would be the best move for the club at this time anyway. Sensible owner with a realistic plan to fund the stadium and a little cash to play with in the transfer market is what’s in order right now.

[itsgunnabebarnes!]

do they even still exist?

[Rossie]

If it is for say 25% of the club we should be well able to raise that sort of money.

[mulfella]

SOS will likely have something to say about this.

[carling]

Don't even want them to be honest. A low profile owner who runs the club as a club, not some sort of funhouse for the fans. All this 'run our own club' is bollocks imo, 100,000 unqualified fans pulling the club in whatever direction their fancy takes. No thank you.

But surely if you put the big decisions to 100,000 fans to vote on then the outcome has got to be better than what the Ameri-cons would decide in the same situation?

Not that I'm sure it is feasible myself.

[redbyrdz]

SOS will likely have something to say about this.

Hopefully.

The last email i got of ShareLFC talked about "being ready for when they're selling" but did read more like something they sent out so we wouldn't forget about them. Not at all as if they had any concrete plans.

[majestic_11]

i would be willing to invest if we went for a 25% share!

It would be nice, to get some sort of priorty for a season ticket in the new stadium but thats pie in the sky!

[harrytrow]

surely the criterior of being able to start the stadium will disqualify their bid if they ever made it ....alone.
However consortium .......

[Greg]

Don't even want them to be honest. A low profile owner who runs the club as a club, not some sort of funhouse for the fans. All this 'run our own club' is bollocks imo, 100,000 unqualified fans pulling the club in whatever direction their fancy takes. No thank you.

So you'd rather that 1 person (who will own the club to make money out of the club) made the decisions, than the democracy of 100,000 fans, who will not want to make a profit out of the club? And you say "unqualified", but if you're gonna put your hand in your own pocket, you're more likely to have a brain.

What I want is the Barcelona model. Where we will elect a president who makes the decisions based on what the (majority of the) fans want.

[SP]

So you'd rather that 1 person (who will own the club to make money out of the club) made the decisions, than the democracy of 100,000 fans, who will not want to make a profit out of the club? And you say "unqualified", but if you're gonna put your hand in your own pocket, you're more likely to have a brain.

What I want is the Barcelona model. Where we will elect a president who makes the decisions based on what the (majority of the) fans want.

And we'd end up with the Real model where the president goes on ego trips that constantly fuck over the club...

[Spanish Al]

Fans owning the club is a scary thought. We have way too many whopper fans who may become a part of that, and have you seen how many want Rafa out? No thanks. Too many whopper fans.

[redbyrdz]

Fans owning the club is a scary thought. We have way too many whopper fans who may become a part of that, and have you seen how many want Rafa out? No thanks. Too many whopper fans.

It won't work like that. The most power a fan would get is a vote in an annual (or less often) general meeting, to elect board members. The club would be run by a board of professionals like it is now.

[Rigden]

Though it is a system that I am genuinly interested in, the amount of nobheads that have shown their irrationality towards rafa this season makes me shudder to the idea. 

[Spanish Al]

It won't work like that. The most power a fan would get is a vote in an annual (or less often) general meeting, to elect board members. The club would be run by a board of professionals like it is now.

Yes, and certain people wanting to go on the board may want Rafa out, so the whoppers would then vote for those members.

It wouldn't work.

[GoldenAgger]

I hope so.

But I just bought a motorbike so I don't know where my "share" will be coming from. 

[conman]

Id like if they could, but i doubt they can.

[pompeyred]

guys where have you been, we went over all this 2 years ago, fan ownership does not mean 100,000 fans clammering to run the club, we elect a board, then a president, based in my opinion on their ability to raise funds to develop the ground and buy players, they would be put forward on their business acumen and experiance, we have these people umongst us who are fans,
as some one said earlier look at the barca model and i believe most of the german clubs, look at ticket prices in these grounds there not out to rip off the fans, why cant we do this.

[Niru Red4ever]

Not heard from rogan taylors group for a few months just wondering if there ready to pounce on this opertunity.
i could probably get a £5k loan to do my bit lets do it.

£5k would be out of reach for most of us, I guess. I personally could manage £500

Even if not a full ownership; fans should have some representation. Raising 50 mp would give us a decent stake.

[Alan_X]

Short answer - no.

[redbyrdz]

Yes, and certain people wanting to go on the board may want Rafa out, so the whoppers would then vote for those members.

It wouldn't work.

Which must be why it doesn't work for all the clubs in the bundesliga. Never heard of one case there where the club members got the manager sacked, not once. Managers go due to pressure from the fans (same as here), but its from the terraces and not via members' votes.

[scared_person]

Full ownership may be impossible right now, but ShareLFC need to be speaking about getting a minority shareholding at least. Count me in. If we don't get a foot in the door at this point then its not a viable option.

All this chat about 100,000 fans voting on every decision is bollocks. It will be run as any other proper organisation, with an elected board accountable to shareholders at an AGM.

[raq11]

And we'd end up with the Real model where the president goes on ego trips that constantly fuck over the club...

except we wouldn't have debts just being written off and forgiven when they do...

[xerxes1]

I heard Rogan on 5live this morning and he was embarrassing - the answer re SL is no.
The debate on fan ownership is pretty well rehearsed. If the enthusiasm for it was there amongst our support, a scheme would have been up and running by now.

Although I believe it is possible, it is a massive undertaking. I fail to see how the professional expertise will materialise in time, I have also yet to see a model which will get popular support from our fan base.

[Endoe]

This talk of a "100,000" person democracy is stupid. That's not how a fan ownership woud work. It work work much like the Barcelona model, where the shareholders vote in a president and the wining presidnt would then hire his own people to help run the club. While i'm not convince ShareLFC are the right people, there's definately a way that fan ownership could work - just look at Barca, also aren't Real Madrid fan owned? 

[Niru Red4ever]

Pity that SLFC fizzled out. This was the right moment to make a move. The should be restarted (SOS?); we should atleast have a stake in the club to prevent a repeat of what the clowns are doing to us in future.

[Vladi Legend]

They probably haven't got quite as much money as they think either. My dad made a "pledge" to Share Liverpool. He's an Everton supporter, and a bitter blue at that. Quite a few of them from Blue Kipper have made false pledges to Share Liverpool to help cock their figures up!

I'd also imagine a number of reds might have made pledges with the best of intentions at the time and could have fallen on harder times since or simply might not be able to raise the funds when called upon.

[pompeyred]

They probably haven't got quite as much money as they think either. My dad made a "pledge" to Share Liverpool. He's an Everton supporter, and a bitter blue at that. Quite a few of them from Blue Kipper have made false pledges to Share Liverpool to help cock their figures up!

I'd also imagine a number of reds might have made pledges with the best of intentions at the time and could have fallen on harder times since or simply might not be able to raise the funds when called upon.

Blimy mate the glass is half empty with you, for every bitter pledge there would be another from a fan who had not heard at the time, or came to be in a position to afford it, we have millions of fans, we are liverpool fc, one of the most famous clubs in the world. I dont see that its the willingness to contribute thats the problem, its more like the huge task of getting it organised, get one of the banks involved, set up a deposit account, if it doesent work, they given your money back plus interest minus a £5 admin charge, could use the coop bank or santandar both have liverpool connections and one has red logo and spanish, keep the theme going(not serious about that last line but would be cool)

[Alan_X]

Blimy mate the glass is half empty with you, for every bitter pledge there would be another from a fan who had not heard at the time, or came to be in a position to afford it, we have millions of fans, we are liverpool fc, one of the most famous clubs in the world. I dont see that its the willingness to contribute thats the problem, its more like the huge task of getting it organised, get one of the banks involved, set up a deposit account, if it doesent work, they given your money back plus interest minus a £5 admin charge, could use the coop bank or santandar both have liverpool connections and one has red logo and spanish, keep the theme going(not serious about that last line but would be cool)

We have millions of people around the world who prefer Liverpool to Man United or Chelsea at the moment. The millions of fans thing is a massive red herring - the number who'd commit a large sum of money are in the tens of thousands at best and maybe a hundred thousand or so who might stump up a yearly membership fee if it was in the hundreds of pounds (like Barcelona).

[TLT]

That how it works at Barcelona Al? Never understood fully how it all works there.

Anyway, I just get the feeling that with Fan Ownership it will never be like the dream we think it should be. Also, the price you would need to invest at, would price out many fans.

If people are getting drawn into this whole media frenzy of "The Red Knights" and thinking "Well we have share Liverpool". Have any of you actually looked into what the Red Knights plan to do? And more importantly, no one knows who the fuck these people are. Just "40 people with £50million each, with £200million borrowed". I bet half of them don't know who Darren Fletcher is. I bet the another 10 think Cristiano Ronaldo still plays for United. And leaving 10, who may have an actual interest in the club, with half of them season ticket holders. Or something a long those lines, anyway.

[Alan_X]

That how it works at Barcelona Al? Never understood fully how it all works there.

Anyway, I just get the feeling that with Fan Ownership it will never be like the dream we think it should be. Also, the price you would need to invest at, would price out many fans.

If people are getting drawn into this whole media frenzy of "The Red Knights" and thinking "Well we have share Liverpool". Have any of you actually looked into what the Red Knights plan to do? And more importantly, no one knows who the fuck these people are. Just "40 people with £50million each, with £200million borrowed". I bet half of them don't know who Darren Fletcher is. I bet the another 10 think Cristiano Ronaldo still plays for United. And leaving 10, who may have an actual interest in the club, with half of them season ticket holders. Or something a long those lines, anyway.

Barcelona is massive red herring. It's "fan owned" but not as in each member having a share - it's a social club and the socios pay an annual subscription that gives them membership and the option to buy tickets for games. It's probably more accurate to say that Barcelona is owned by no-one. IF a Barca fan wants out, he doesn't get his money back, he's just not a member anymore.

This is what I wrote about Share Liverpool at the launch. For me nothing has changed.

My two pennorth on the Share Liverpool thing:

I wasn't able to get on the site and have only read the Q&A that was posted on here. I have to confess when I read it I was staggered by the amateurish level of the whole thing. These are just my initial thoughts:

I'd love it to happen but if anything this will make it less likely. My big beefs with Share Liverpool:

• Why the big secret? Surely you should have a properly considered debate before asking people to commit to spending £5,000. At least publish your ideas in advance. Going online at 5.00pm and suggesting the first 20,000 would get some (undefined) ticket priviledges was crass in the extreme. I'm involved with an architectural manifesto group and we're about to spend £4,000 on a handout in one of the trade magazines. For £10,000 or so they could have included a decent prospectus, outlining the scheme, a draft constitution and other information in the Echo. An online version could follow but the disemination of the idea and the ability to sign up should have been separate.

• Why sign up on the internet? (I know the answer - it's cheap). Is that really the way to go about raising half-a-billion pounds? I don't know how many clicks the "Count me in" button got before the site crashed but I bet there's a fair amount of students, time-wasters and god-alone-knows what else in there.

• No consideration for the heart and soul of the club. The people who go week in week out and spend all their money on tickets and travel. This wouldn't be "the fans" owning the club. Fatuous comments like "Liverpool fans have always turned out when the club needed them... They find the money somehow, even at short notice..." made my blood boil. Reading the posts from Reds who I know are match goers, talking about getting together with 10, 20 or 50 of their mates to buy one share was ridiculous. There should have been appropriate levels of entry rather than one, overpriced entry level that excluded a vast number of fans and potentially allows middle-class OOTs like me who go to maybe 9/10 games a season to have ten or twenty times the representation of match-going fans.

• Tickets - apart from the vague reference to the first 20,000 internet warriors to sign up getting preferential ticketing arrangements, the only response to the question "will members be guaranteed a ticket" was "You're kidding!"  What the fuck does that mean?

• The references to Istanbul and Athens were stupid. I spent less than £1,000 going to Athens and it was a football match and a great trip. There is no comparison between spending up to £1,000 of your hard-earned cash on a trip to a European Final and effectively giving away £5,000. 50,000 fans at £1,000 equals £50 million so that's a tenth of the money they're asking for.

• This made my fucking blood boil!...  Q. Why shouldn't I wait and see what happens, without putting up any money? A. You could miss out badly. The list would close. Also we would consider giving the first 20,000... special status... Those who commit first deserve some reward...  Absolutely disgusting in my opinion. No mention that the 40,000 who turn up to the games should get special status... just the 20,000 who have a job that allows them to be online at 5.00pm on a work day...

• The figures... why £500 million? All they need is the money to buy the club and some operating capital. Why make fans subsidise the stadium with their own cash when it could be funded through loans initially and through corporate box sales, naming rights etc as it nears completion?

• The figures again... one of the things that has been passed over is what happens if they do get it off the ground but only raise say, £200 million. They talk about buying a "significant share" of the club's shares. I'm sure George and Tom would be delighted. A bunch of naive fans willing to buy a minority share of the club with a nice cash injection. They would piss themselves laughing at the irony of it all.

• Why no draft constitution or club structure? It can't be decided by 100,000 fans like they suggest. They should have published what they thought it should be before asking people to sign up with any commitment, however vague... and that goes back to the fact that they didn't consult widely enough...

Basically it seems to me that what we have is essentially a (well intentioned) pub discussion: "DIC are bidding £500milliion for the club.... How much?... £500milliion... fuck me all we'd need would be... oh... a hundred thousand fans at five grand each....  yeah... they must have spent that going to Istanbul... yeah... well nearly... so what d'you reckon...  yeah, let's do it... so we'll need a load of stuff printed and issued... nah internet mate... cheap as chips... we'll need lawyers and other professionals... nah we'll just tag on a "help wanted" ad at the end of the website... "

I could go on...

Sorry but I'm very angry that a good idea has probably been pissed up the wall. I wrote a few weeks back that this sort of thing would only work (and I believe it could work) if it had at its head a real driving force willing to force things through, willing stand on people's toes and not need to rely on consensus. I don't think Rogan Taylor is that person.

and a year later:

In the first place It was a poorly thought out proposal and secondly, there wasn't anyone charismatic enough to drive it forward.

Some of the reasoning just didn't add up. Going on about a million fans is meaningless unless someone's actually bothered doing the research to find out what those fans feel about the club, how much income they have etc... For example the per capita household consumption in the UK (2002) was $15,572, the equivalent in Thailand was $1,524. That's a simple reality. There are marketing and sales opportunities in Asia but there is no massive untapped resource of people with enough wealth to donate £5,000 on a non-returnable non-profit basis for a club they will probably never visit. Where's the selling point?

The type of people who would have the available wealth are in Europe and the Americas. Europe is hardly an untapped market. Maybe a few hundreds or thousands in the traditional heartlands of Scandinavia but Italy, Germany, Spain etc?... well they are pretty well served with clubs of their own - we may be a lot of people's second club but that's about it. South America? - again no real market and the US... forget it.

So you'd be looking for support from Liverpool fans in the UK. The Share Liverpool rationale was that tens of thousands of fans found the money to go to European finals so they'd do the same to own a piece of the club. It was never going to happen.

Of the 45,000 who go to every home game and the 3,000 or so who go away - how many of those are actually concerned about this issue? A lot less than you'd think. One of my big concerns was that a lot of the people who most deserved to be shareholders - the fans who spend their money to go home and away - were among those likely to be disenfranchised by the whole thing.

If Share Liverpool do have pledges of £30,000,000 that's around 6,000 individuals or groups, which is probably the maximum you'd expect from the above. The target of 100,000 shares was hopelessly optimistic. The fact that the launch was used as an information gathering exercise said it all. It was a back-of-a-fag-packet idea that was launched too soon.

People cite Barcelona as the model but they've had decades to build up to where they are now. If Barca were in private ownership it would need a lot more than the current subscriptions to meet any purchase price (110,000 members @ £150? the exact figures don't matter - we're talking less than £20m). It's an irrelevance.

So could something have worked?... Maybe, but just reducing the amount per share was never going to work - it just changes the problem - £250 each = 2,000,000 shares needed for £500m.

What was needed was proper research before the launch and a proposal based on a realistic assessment of the possibilities. They should have had a launch to raise money to fund proper market research, legal and commercial advice before putting forward their proposals. Most importantly it needed someone at the head - a charismatic figure who would spend every waking hour driving it forward, motivating local and national politicians, businesses and people associated with the club. Sadly Rogan Taylor, well intentioned though he is, is no Bill Shankly.

[DonkeyWan]

Spot on Alan, the above should be the first last and only comment made on Share LFC. A well-intentioned idea, badly executed and with little thought given to the operations of the scheme or the longer-term impact of fan ownership.

I am not against some form of fan input into the control and direction of the club though, just not this club together to buy Liverpool nonsense.

[Benimar Col]

im for the idea of the club being owned by the fans, however it wants officially breaking down into equal amounts and and fans purchasing shares tio suit their requirements not an equal £5K worth,  this would revert us back to the years when Mr Smith was Chairman and latterly Moores

[Degs]

Don't even want them to be honest. A low profile owner who runs the club as a club, not some sort of funhouse for the fans. All this 'run our own club' is bollocks imo, 100,000 unqualified fans pulling the club in whatever direction their fancy takes. No thank you.

It'll never work

[img width= height=]http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gO11e2b2Y3A2/610x.jpg[/img]

[OohCampione]

It'll never work

I see what you did there!

[hoonin]

What I want is the Barcelona model. Where we will elect a president who makes the decisions based on what the (majority of the) fans want.

Barcelona have a massive base of club members, facilitated by an in place stadium of nearly 100,000 capacity. We're a long way off that sort of income per seat.

There's also the question of which bank would ever lend £250M for construction of a stadium to a co-operative comprising of small scale investors. Where would the guarantees come from if the small scale investments have already been used in acquiring shares?

I love the idea of fan ownership, I really do - but those questions above don't seem to have any answers at the moment.

[Alan_X]

It'll never work

[img width= height=]http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gO11e2b2Y3A2/610x.jpg[/img]

People have very short memories. Barcelona have been a lot less successful than a club of their size should have been over the years. They won just one league title between 1960 and 1984 and only won their first European Cup in the nineties. When we were dominating at home and in Europe during the seventies and eighties the idea of Barcelona being the model for anything would have been a joke. 

Their recent success is largely down to Laporta as president, not because they are fan owned. Under Gaspart they were fucking awful.

[Degs]

People have very short memories. Barcelona have been a lot less successful than a club of their size should have been over the years. They won just one league title between 1960 and 1984 and only won their first European Cup in the nineties. When we were dominating at home and in Europe during the seventies and eighties the idea of Barcelona being the model for anything would have been a joke. 

Their recent success is largely down to Laporta as president, not because they are fan owned. Under Gaspart they were fucking awful.

But in response to somebody saying fan ownership is pie in the sky and will never work I say take a gander. 
It is working and to be honest if we're coutning European Cups then this time next month they could be squarely on to be 1 behind us.