Supporting Liverpool Football Club is a joy. The results may pain us, the performances may drain us but we are all part of a gang. A group, a club. A local institution and an internationally known sports team, supported from Anfield to Argentina. Liverpool is massive. This very fact, it is safe to assume, is what attracted FSG to us five-and-a-half years ago. Our people, our culture, our storied past and future full of chances and possibilities. FSG fell in love with our club like we as fans have done in years past.
Or did they?
The story of FSG and Liverpool is one that could have been made into a movie. Through instability and fractured finances, Royal Bank of Scotland played matchmakers between the club and its owners through the joint prospect of ridding Liverpool’s previous American owners and starting fresh. But this was business, after all, and how well did it bode for Liverpool as a club?
RBS were owed £237m from Hicks and Gillett, an astronomical amount of money and a real measure of just how wrong the pair of Americans had gotten our mighty Reds. The interest alone was crippling us. In the end – enough was enough. RBS wanted their money back.
As we all know, banks do what they want. In this situation, though, RBS were well within their right to pursue legal action against our former owners because of the breach of the contract signed upon refinancing the loan originally taken out from the bank. Hicks and Gillett tried to break up the board of the club and, in turn, sack the chairman brought in to sell the club, Martin Broughton. He was a main stipulation in the agreement with RBS – sell the club and get us our money back is basically what the bank said. Trying to oust Broughton was a clear breach of RBS/H&G’s previous agreement. This allowed the previous board to force through a sale to the buyer with the greatest offer. This buyer was FSG. This buyer was our boys John Henry and Tom Warner.
John and Tom came into the club like a couple of shy boys starting primary school. They didn’t shout, they didn’t sing. They didn’t even attend their first game as owners. This is what we liked about them, though. I remember it clearly. Under promise and over deliver. It was clear as day. These lads meant business.
“It’s too early to say what we’re going to do,” said Henry, something that the Liverpool fans loved. Realism and honest talk. That’s what we were glad to see. All we had to do was wait a few years, though, then we found out exactly what they wanted to do.
As a fan, I have never wanted to oppose somebody inside the club. I try and give managers time that other fans don’t because I feel that is right. Players have always gotten that respect, too. Owners the same. Fenway Sports Group are very, very close to crossing that line. Really, very close.
They have always appeared to me to be quite a decent act. Lovers of sport, lovers of culture. Owning a club is Boston and a club in Liverpool lends itself to that. Both cities with history and life. Ploughing funding after funding into the Red Sox, Liverpool fans got excited. The news that they also refurbished the great Fenway Park instead of building a new stadium gave hope that Anfield would be our home for years to come. This ended up being the case, as FSG announced a new stadium would be cancelled in favour of two new stands being built. Cheaper and more cost effective, but to the fans, it means Anfield was here to stay.
The announcement of near 9,000 new seats was music to our ears. I am lucky enough to go to the game regularly, but even I was excited at the thought of paying less for my ticket. More fans in the ground and more hospitality surrounding it, in my head, meant a lower cost to the fan. Or in FSG’s case the customer.
Fast forward a few years and it’s been announced this week that Liverpool’s ticket prices, on the whole, are increasing, with the money-shot being a £77 ticket in the newly refurbished Main Stand.
The club, for all of their talk and general pointless effort, have suggested that ticket prices for almost half of the ground have either frozen or been reduced. This may be the case but, my opinion, and everyone else’s too, is that to freeze a price that currently sits too high anyway is to cover the smell of sick by taking a shit next to it. Stupid and completely missing the point.
There are fans who can’t afford to see their club play football. The prices are so high that they literally cannot risk paying the entrance fee. At £77 a ticket, you aren’t getting any change out of £110 if you’re having the whole match-day experience. Which the club know that we are.
Let’s forget the highest price ticket for a moment, though, and take a look at the rest. The cheapest category A game for an adult is £36. This in itself tells a story.
The club were well known to be negotiating and listening to fan committees, namely SOS and Spion Kop 1906. Their proposal was to level all prices at £30. A fair deal I think, but also one that seems to balance the price of attendance with the newly signed TV deal. This was a starting mark for the committees above, and they will have known it was a long road. They knew this, but I’m sure they didn’t see the current prices coming.
Not only have our club decided against the proposal put forward by SOS/SK, but they have ignored it completely. £36 is still in the realms of unaffordable to people. And as a club that thrives on community spirit and togetherness, this lack of attention to social morality seems sharp, obvious and despicable.
I am one of the fans that thinks Ian Ayre gets too much flack. As a rule, he is the figurehead of a group of people and, although he is head of the group, he sometimes gets a rough draw. His quotes around “What’s affordable to one person is different to another” strike me as a key phrase gone badly wrong. The sentence is correct and obvious, but we don’t want affordability for some, we want it for everyone. Just like we shouldn’t charge people with less disposable income hugely to watch a game of football, we shouldn’t charge more wealthy supporters more just because we can. That isn’t fair. That is snide. The only way to have it fair for everyone is by reducing prices drastically. Something the club have missed the chance to do. If you’re sat at home thinking that you’re alright because you can afford it then you’re what’s wrong with the club. I’ve seen a few people saying this on Twitter and it makes me ill. It’s incredibly short sighted and reeks of shithousery. Just like Ayre’s quotes.
The new mega TV deal gave the club a real chance to create an image and an atmosphere which reflected well upon the city of Liverpool too. Chance and opportunity for anyone to pick up a ticket. To pick up a scarf and go to the game. Demand would be high, but then the onus is on the fans to ready themselves for a battle for tickets. With the current poor form by the club, they’re crippling some fans before they even get a chance to try. FSG are towing a very thin line. Football isn’t for an exclusive club. This isn’t Oxford and this isn’t Cambridge. This is an open house and our owners are closing the doors and withdrawing the invites. Those with money need only enter.
Watch your backs, Reds, there are snakes in the grass.
