Topic: Your opinions on Chinese ownership

[lionel_messias]

FSG bought at 300 mill, the club will soon be worth over a Billion, if it isn't already.

This will happen soon or later for this reason, in my view.

Plus, the TV revenue potential of all those hundreds of millions of Chinese middle class is vast, beyond dreams.

There is no point fighting it. The comforting thought is that Liverpool Football Club is only worth something if it has a connection to local fans and the city of Liverpool. That will never change, regardless or who signs the cheques or plans the commercial deals.

The reality is global, we have fans who get out of bed in Shanghai, Umlam Bator, Chicago, Brisbane, Delhi to cheer on the Mighty Reds.

But what they buying into is a club powered by local passion and Liverpool people.

[Historical Fool]

FSG bought at 300 mill, the club will soon be worth over a Billion, if it isn't already.

This will happen soon or later for this reason, in my view.

Plus, the TV revenue potential of all those hundreds of millions of Chinese middle class is vast, beyond dreams.

There is no point fighting it. The comforting thought is that Liverpool Football Club is only worth something if it has a connection to local fans and the city of Liverpool. That will never change, regardless or who signs the cheques or plans the commercial deals.

The reality is global, we have fans who get out of bed in Shanghai, Umlam Bator, Chicago, Brisbane, Delhi to cheer on the Mighty Reds.

But what they buying into is a club powered by local passion and Liverpool people.

And therefore the question ought not to be "what are your opinions on Chinese ownership", but rather "what do you think a potential Chinese part stake would do for the City of Liverpool, its people, and Merseyside generally?"

That's a better question, I would think.

[ENSKIED]

I just want to add, for thought, once the Chinese government own LFC, they will never sell. To the Chinese that would be considered loss of face, which is totally socially unacceptable. I suspect the Venky's are of a similar mindset, refusing to respond so far to requests to meet to discuss their clubs future. So, are all you who want to sell ready for a whole lifetime of being the puppet club of a faraway land?.

There is no proof of some of what you say there whatsoever, I don't mean to baldy offend a fellow Red there but that I believe is possibly based on your own musings, meanderings or whatever, for example a week is a long, long time in politics!!! And China as country is in the throes of great change and in the process is becoming more an more open to change and having trained with some Chinese and so forth, I personally found them very receptive and very agreeable, they come from a culture of honour that is for sure in regard to my knowledge of "them". So as long as we Liverpool FC under Chinese stewardship are competing with the best and winning the best, who cares if they own us to the 23rd Century or beyond? By which time to parody a well know ex-manager we hopefully will have knocked Real Madrid, Barca, Bayern and Man U well and truly off their f******perches. 

Incidentally in case you hadn't noticed MAR, FSG come from a "faraway land" and these faraway lands these days are reached in the time it takes to walk down the pub have few bevies and a good curry, we are not talking the days of China Sea tea cliippers here ya know - and they are human beings after all not aliens.  

[lionel_messias]

And therefore the question ought not to be "what are your opinions on Chinese ownership", but rather "what do you think a potential Chinese part stake would do for the City of Liverpool, its people, and Merseyside generally?"

That's a better question, I would think.

Yeah, if they can build infrastructure and benefits for the City of Liverpool then that seals the deal. Foreign investment, innit.
Benefits on both sides. UK open for business etc.

Long term we want Liverpool the city to prosper and the football club to be toe-to-toe with the elite clubs in Europe and the Premier league.

[ThePoolMan]

Oh I was just wondering.

That's good to know.

That's cool but you still havent supplied the basis for your allusion to it being logical.

And where are you from?

[ThePoolMan]

Yeah, if they can build infrastructure and benefits for the City of Liverpool then that seals the deal. Foreign investment, innit.
Benefits on both sides. UK open for business etc.

Long term we want Liverpool the city to prosper and the football club to be toe-to-toe with the elite clubs in Europe and the Premier league.

The Chinese property development companies are huge. You see them literally take over vast blocs of land in parts of Malaysia and they bring in workers and engineers from China wholesale and raise condos, shopping complexes, etc. There's good and bad in that, I suppose.

[El Lobo]

FSG bought at 300 mill, the club will soon be worth over a Billion, if it isn't already.

This will happen soon or later for this reason, in my view.

Plus, the TV revenue potential of all those hundreds of millions of Chinese middle class is vast, beyond dreams.

There is no point fighting it. The comforting thought is that Liverpool Football Club is only worth something if it has a connection to local fans and the city of Liverpool. That will never change, regardless or who signs the cheques or plans the commercial deals.

The reality is global, we have fans who get out of bed in Shanghai, Umlam Bator, Chicago, Brisbane, Delhi to cheer on the Mighty Reds.

But what they buying into is a club powered by local passion and Liverpool people.

Aye, thank fuck we've never experienced a takeover by people who had the same idea of the club making them easy and nearly had us doing a Portsmouth. Comforting thoughts indeed.

[CraigDS]

You merely saying that it is logical does not make it so.

Literally just spat my tea all over my computer.


John, I may need to dip into company expenses.

[ThePoolMan]

Literally just spat my tea all over my computer.


John, I may need to dip into company expenses.

Why don't you stop being childishly petulant and cease being personal? Your bad attitude towards me is not helping this thread in any way.

[CraigDS]

Why don't you stop being childishly petulant and cease being personal? Your bad attitude towards me is not helping this thread in any way.

What was personal this time? You appear a touchy one who is seemingly unable to take a joke. You should lighten up a little mate.

[Alan_X]

I just want to add, for thought, once the Chinese government own LFC, they will never sell. To the Chinese that would be considered loss of face, which is totally socially unacceptable. I suspect the Venky's are of a similar mindset, refusing to respond so far to requests to meet to discuss their clubs future. So, are all you who want to sell ready for a whole lifetime of being the puppet club of a faraway land?.

That's speculation and doesn't bear close scrutiny:

http://www.scmp.com/business/money/markets-investing/article/1481468/china-everbright-goes-full-steam-expansion-after

China Everbright is a business conglomerate and they will dispose of assets if they aren't performing.

[Doc Red]

Then that would obviously be different to the point that was being made....?

I might have misunderstood, I understood your point as inferring to those that are making arguments for the Chinese purchase as only caring about winning.

edit: I would say a minority, rather than a majority, of the posts supporting a Chinese purchase are not solely caring about winning.

[DonkeyWan]

As has probably been repeated several times in this thread, net spend is not the best indicator of financial expenditure on transfers.  It's wages that seem to have a closer link to success. There have been numerous occasions when we might have matched an offer, but lost out on the gap in wages. Additionally,  the capability to offer high wages can make it easier for us to keep our core players, instead of seeing them seek transfers elsewhere. You can't expect our top players to have salaries vastly dwarfed by other contenders and expect them to not consider moving on to other clubs competing for titles and with higher salaries to boot, simply because we're Liverpool and we budget costs the FSG way.

I agree with your point, FSG are  a careful sporting investment firm, they own Liverpool for reasons other than interest. And yes, they have done things that are more moneyman than fan. But to date at least they have maintained a reasonably good relationship with the fans. I am just wary of unknown consortiums and their intentions and feel it we would be better to look before you leap rather than say "well, FSG are just the thin end of the wedge to a fan ass-fucking anyway, may as well take a chance on the entire wedge being shoved up there and take the new money on offer." I think we should let the thin edge of the wedge circle the rim for as long as possible, imo.

[Nessy76]

I agree with your point, FSG are  a careful sporting investment firm, they own Liverpool for reasons other than interest. And yes, they have done things that are more moneyman than fan. But to date at least they have maintained a reasonably good relationship with the fans. I am just wary of unknown consortiums and their intentions and feel it we would be better to look before you leap rather than say "well, FSG are just the thin end of the wedge to a fan ass-fucking anyway, may as well take a chance on the entire wedge being shoved up there and take the new money on offer." I think we should let the thin edge of the wedge circle the rim for as long as possible, imo.

Best post on the thread.

[ThePoolMan]

What was personal this time? You appear a touchy one who is seemingly unable to take a joke. You should lighten up a little mate.

Really...Oh it was a "joke" was it...

[Red JR]

This phenomenon may be why Ibramovich and Pogba are wiling to sign up for United despite them being out of Europe.

I think you're spot on there. Net spend maybe used to be the main indicator but when you think about it it's wages that often dictate transfers now. Lfc can probably go out and buy a £60m player but will we offer him £300k a week? Most likely not. Obviously it's not as black and white as that in all deals otherwise everybody would be rushing to China but in general I think you're right.  The game is so controlled by players now.

[ThePoolMan]

I agree with your point, FSG are  a careful sporting investment firm, they own Liverpool for reasons other than interest. And yes, they have done things that are more moneyman than fan. But to date at least they have maintained a reasonably good relationship with the fans.

The reality is that the club is FSG's and they will do with it whatever they want according to first and foremost their interest.

They are not cash strapped and hocked to a bank like the previous owners so that the fans are able to agitate and influence the bank...

There's not a thing we can do about it this time.


 

[markedasred]

That's speculation and doesn't bear close scrutiny:

http://www.scmp.com/business/money/markets-investing/article/1481468/china-everbright-goes-full-steam-expansion-after

China Everbright is a business conglomerate and they will dispose of assets if they aren't performing.

Well, by accident or design, you have hit the nail of my point on the head. These " assets if they aren't performing", just happens to be the club I support, and that disposal would be the start of the club going in to another lengthy cycle of rebuild. I realise my previous comment could be misread as xenophobic, but I was attempting a short hand when using the term faraway land, to imply a massively different culture. If you want to get a sense of this, look at the building of Olympic facilities in London and compare that with the stories of the working conditions for the building of Beijing facilities. American working conditions are just as reasonable as ours, and American culture is in our homes via tv, music and general entertainment - it is not one of sacrificing the aspirations of the individual for the good of the country, as we have seen in Chinese culture for all our lives so far. Any talk of openness and change in China is Jam tomorrow, not life there today for the masses. The philosophy our current owners are employing in the running of the club is a gradual building up, and I can see it happening with my own eyes. The first Chinese owner of a football club I can see is the one who bought Birmingham City, and I believe he is in prison for Fraud, and Tony Xia who has his eyes on owning Aston Villa is currently being written about in the telegraph: "he fabricated his academic record, while a company he controlled has apparently previously run foul of authorities for providing false information to secure a certificate. "
There is no such thing as due diligence on ownership in reality. If you have the wad of cash by any means, and the previous crew want to offload, their real interest is the colour of the money. I would rather go head to head with the team they go for after passing us over, as they go about bungling the attempt to over inflate a mid table club. We will be the tortoise in the parable of the tortoise and the hare.

[El Lobo]

I might have misunderstood, I understood your point as inferring to those that are making arguments for the Chinese purchase as only caring about winning.

edit: I would say a minority, rather than a majority, of the posts supporting a Chinese purchase are not solely caring about winning.

Nah not at all, I get that people want us to have more money to be able compete. I disagree with that because it makes it seem like we havent been able to compete for non-footballing reasons, when in actual fact we've just not made good decisions and have still spent plenty of money. More than others who consistently finish above us.

But yeah there is a minority who have been pretty vocal in making it clear the priority for them is to support a successful club, and whatever might happen to the football or the experience of support is secondary.

[KillieRed]

The reality is that the club is FSG's and they will do with it whatever they want according to first and foremost their interest.

They are not cash strapped and hocked to a bank like the previous owners so that the fans are able to agitate and influence the bank...

There's not a thing we can do about it this time.

I`ll think you`ll find that there are lot`s of things that disgruntled fans can do to cause unscrupulous ownership groups problems, at least in an open democracy.

Personally I think FSG have been good owners/custodians on the whole, which makes the prospect of "unknown" owners taking over a source of worry for many people.

[ScouserAtHeart]

"well, FSG are just the thin end of the wedge to a fan ass-fucking anyway, may as well take a chance on the entire wedge being shoved up there and take the new money on offer." I think we should let the thin edge of the wedge circle the rim for as long as possible, imo.

To quote TAW, ban this filth

[JackWard33]

Nah not at all, I get that people want us to have more money to be able compete. I disagree with that because it makes it seem like we havent been able to compete for non-footballing reasons, when in actual fact we've just not made good decisions and have still spent plenty of money. More than others who consistently finish above us.

With the exception of Spurs in recent years that's just not the case.
We've been at a clear financial disadvantage - particularly in wage bill (which is what counts) - to first 1 then 2 and now 4 clubs.
Our fall in average league position over the last 25 years correlates with this.
Really not sure why people want to debate this all the time... it's like they don't want it to be to be the answer to our decline regardless of the facts

[thejbs]

Well, by accident or design, you have hit the nail of my point on the head. These " assets if they aren't performing", just happens to be the club I support, and that disposal would be the start of the club going in to another lengthy cycle of rebuild. I realise my previous comment could be misread as xenophobic, but I was attempting a short hand when using the term faraway land, to imply a massively different culture. If you want to get a sense of this, look at the building of Olympic facilities in London and compare that with the stories of the working conditions for the building of Beijing facilities. American working conditions are just as reasonable as ours, and American culture is in our homes via tv, music and general entertainment - it is not one of sacrificing the aspirations of the individual for the good of the country, as we have seen in Chinese culture for all our lives so far. Any talk of openness and change in China is Jam tomorrow, not life there today for the masses. The philosophy our current owners are employing in the running of the club is a gradual building up, and I can see it happening with my own eyes. The first Chinese owner of a football club I can see is the one who bought Birmingham City, and I believe he is in prison for Fraud, and Tony Xia who has his eyes on owning Aston Villa is currently being written about in the telegraph: "he fabricated his academic record, while a company he controlled has apparently previously run foul of authorities for providing false information to secure a certificate. "
There is no such thing as due diligence on ownership in reality. If you have the wad of cash by any means, and the previous crew want to offload, their real interest is the colour of the money. I would rather go head to head with the team they go for after passing us over, as they go about bungling the attempt to over inflate a mid table club. We will be the tortoise in the parable of the tortoise and the hare.

This is real-life, not an Aesop fable. In modern football, slow and steady doesn't win the race.  Chelsea and Man City are two of the Premier League super clubs, and yet were recently mid-table or lower.  Even Leicester's miraculous premier league title wouldn't have happened without a billionaire taking over in 2011.

Everton or someone like Leeds could be transformed into a top club within 5 years or less with some Chinese billions.  Within ten years, success for the club will have won them fans all around the globe - especially in China.  The further you go from source, the more likely it is that fans will switch and form allegiances based on success. People without any local or familial connection to Liverpool will buy into the nouveau-successes more readily.  I'm well-travelled, and in the past ten years the amount of people I've seen abroad wearing Chelsea shirts has increased exponentially, and City is following suit. Liverpool's large global following is based upon historical successes, not some naturally occurring, organic affinity for the team.

I believe in what Klopp is doing - the slow building of his team - but I don't want it to be the same as BVB, where once Klopp had created his great team, it was torn apart by teams with more money.  I want us to have the financial clout to be able to retain our best players once we've built a successful team.

[lionel_messias]

Aye, thank fuck we've never experienced a takeover by people who had the same idea of the club making them easy and nearly had us doing a Portsmouth. Comforting thoughts indeed.

Like all things in life, there is the capacity for things to go tits up. Hopefully though tin-pot capitalists cannot afford us now.
The next buy-out probably won't be a leveraged one, it will be a sovereign fund richer than 100 Donald Trumps.

[thejbs]

With the exception of Spurs in recent years that's just not the case.
We've been at a clear financial disadvantage - particularly in wage bill (which is what counts) - to first 1 then 2 and now 4 clubs.
Our fall in average league position over the last 25 years correlates with this.
Really not sure why people want to debate this all the time... it's like they don't want it to be to be the answer to our decline regardless of the facts

Yup, totally agree.  Also, rich teams can afford to make expensive mistakes.  £64m of DiMaria and Falcao's wages could be written off easily for Utd.  Mistakes are more critical to us. Wages are critical too.  We simply cannot compete on that front with at least 4 PL clubs.

[El Lobo]

With the exception of Spurs in recent years that's just not the case.
We've been at a clear financial disadvantage - particularly in wage bill (which is what counts) - to first 1 then 2 and now 4 clubs.
Our fall in average league position over the last 25 years correlates with this.
Really not sure why people want to debate this all the time... it's like they don't want it to be to be the answer to our decline regardless of the facts

We're at a disadvantage to Chelsea and Man City, as are pretty much every other club in this league, and United. We're at a disadvantage to Arsenal because they've made better footballing decisions than us. We finish below Spurs because they make better footballing decisions than us.

You can come up with as many excuses as you want, about wage bill, net spend, normal spend, blah blah blah. We've made shit footballing decisions. This magical mystery group of Chinese businessmen who have absolutely zero experience of running a football club are not going to change that.

[JackWard33]

We're at a disadvantage to Chelsea and Man City, as are pretty much every other club in this league, and United. We're at a disadvantage to Arsenal because they've made better footballing decisions than us. We finish below Spurs because they make better footballing decisions than us.

You can come up with as many excuses as you want, about wage bill, net spend, normal spend, blah blah blah. We've made shit footballing decisions. This magical mystery group of Chinese businessmen who have absolutely zero experience of running a football club are not going to change that.

Cool - so you're now accepting we're at a material disadvantage to 4 clubs before we kick a ball?
That's different to your initial post

Do you also accept that means we're asking any liverpool manager or team of people making 'footballing decisions' to significantly over achieve while, at the same time, the richer clubs don't also significantly over achieve, in order for us to compete for the league?

[El Lobo]

Yup, totally agree.  Also, rich teams can afford to make expensive mistakes.  £64m of DiMaria and Falcao's wages could be written off easily for Utd.  Mistakes are more critical to us. Wages are critical too.  We simply cannot compete on that front with at least 4 PL clubs.

Mistakes are more critical to us because we continually make them. We've spent £100 million odd purely on strikers who were never going to be suitable for us.

[JackWard33]

Mistakes are more critical to us because we continually make them. We've spent £100 million odd purely on strikers who were never going to be suitable for us.

Yeah we also bought Suarez, Sturridge and Torres - 3 of the best strikers to play for us.
We've made mistakes and we've made genius moves

None of this changes the fact that we're asking Klopp to give the other clubs a 50,60,70 million wage bill head start in footballing talent and then go compete for the league

[ollick]

Yeah we also bought Suarez, Sturridge and Torres - 3 of the best strikers to play for us.
We've made mistakes and we've made genius moves

None of this changes the fact that we're asking Klopp to give the other clubs a 50,60,70 million wage bill head start in footballing talent and then go compete for the league

I would say aswell (and to be honest I don't even know if it's relevant!) but FSG have seemed to me to be willing to give bigger contracts where necesary to players who have come in and then reached the level expected of them, Sturridge and Suarez being two that I can think of. I have never really looked into player wages too much (at all) 

If Firmino, Origi, Can (who I think is under contract negotiations at the moment) all perform well this season I can see them getting larger long term contracts and wages, I would guess, which is a dangerous thing to do, that Klopp also got an increased wage package when he signed a longer term contract.

Potential for Mane too??

[El Lobo]

Yeah we also bought Suarez, Sturridge and Torres - 3 of the best strikers to play for us.
We've made mistakes and we've made genius moves

None of this changes the fact that we're asking Klopp to give the other clubs a 50,60,70 million wage bill head start in footballing talent and then go compete for the league

No, we're asking Klopp to punch at the weight we should be (which is at least 5th based on every parameter you want to measure finance by) and to then hopefully punch above that. But we don't. We make shit football decisions which leads us to finishing 7th/8th and then moan that the reason we finish there is because we don't spend enough.

[JackWard33]

No, we're asking Klopp to punch at the weight we should be (which is at least 5th based on every parameter you want to measure finance by) and to then hopefully punch above that. But we don't. We make shit football decisions which leads us to finishing 7th/8th and then moan that the reason we finish there is because we don't spend enough.

You're conflating issues. No one is arguing 7th or 8th is good enough or where we should be finishing.
Surely the question about our ownership is whether they have a strategy to contend for the league? I thought that's what we were talking about

[lionel_messias]

But of course we need TWO things:

--enough income/money to buy top players

--the right strategy from a Director of Football type - working in conjunction with Klopp, 1st team meister.


It's means no more Benteke's, and also means we might get the Ousmane Dembele's of the future, and also one or two N'Golo Kante's from near rivals.

[El Lobo]

You're conflating issues. No one is arguing 7th or 8th is good enough or where we should be finishing.
Surely the question about our ownership is whether they have a strategy to contend for the league? I thought that's what we were talking about

Yeah, but the logical way is to actually have a strategy to punch at our own weight surely? You know, like contending for CL places on a consistent basis?

[JackWard33]

Yeah, but the logical way is to actually have a strategy to punch at our own weight surely? You know, like contending for CL places on a consistent basis?

Sure. We don't have that at the moment.
Although punching our weight is currently 5th so even that doesn't equate to a champions league place consistently
The current ownership seem want football to bridge the gap that money creates (although its hard to discern what their priorities and targets are) .... when actually money bridges the gap money creates!

[keyo]

Sure. We don't have that at the moment.
Although punching our weight is currently 5th so even that doesn't equate to a champions league place consistently
The current ownership seem want football to bridge the gap that money creates (although its hard to discern what their priorities and targets are) .... when actually money bridges the gap money creates!

That would raise 2 questions about fsg:-
1. Are they being realistic if that is the strategy (and how does stadium development impact their strategy)?
2. Has their tenure been a failure to date? We have consistently finished lower than 5th under fsg ownership. Do we judge them this way?

[Mighty Zeus]

Gypsy Zeus predicts that under majority Chinese ownership we'd be in a breakaway Euro league within thirteen minutes.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/sep/09/la-liga-president-champions-league-breakaway

I'm fairly confident the traditions of English football culture would be the last things on the minds of these Chinese negotiators when presented with global TV markets.

We talk about investment being God, but you know, investors want the highest return on the money. Traditions and indeed people don't really feature in Chinese political/economic culture, in case you'd missed the last couple of decades.

[ENSKIED]

Well I have read all the posts, some great posts on here on both sides. helping to confirm why TGM Shankly said,  "The Liverpool fans are the most knowledgeable in the game", anyway I read 'em with an impartial eye and mind, and I am compelled to say in the speak of our, Hooray Henry politicans the "ayes have it!" The naysayers thus far are trailing, so IMHO based on the evidence so far it's  Sell! Sell Sell! 

[4pool]

FSG bought at 300 mill, the club will soon be worth over a Billion, if it isn't already.

And if FSG do as they are doing, the club could be worth 1.5 billion in 5 years time.

FSG aren't fools and they know the market potential, that the increase in club worth will continue to rise.


Those advocating they'll make a big return on their initial purchase price and should sell now, don't understand FSG.

This is also a reason why they haven't sold the Red Sox as well. They would make a ton of money over their purchase price. But the value of the Red Sox is not going to go down any time soon.


I'll say it one more time, owning a club give money men a thrill that buying and selling a business doesn't. It's the ability to win big games, to challenge for "trophies", and win some if things go right.

[TheMightyReds]

Too many complications in the group structure.

No thanks.