Liverpool - Finances

It used to be that Liverpool's financial results were of no real interest. The club made money, invested in players, won things and everyone was happy. That was until Gillet and Hicks bought the club. Now everyone has an opinion, and much financial scaremongering happens.

This site hopefully presents to you the financial results in words that we can all understand. All the numbers quoted about the club have come from the club's own accounts. If a mistake has been made in this, and you spot it, then PLEASE let us know, the aim is to be as honest as can be. If you have more accurate information then please get in touch.

There are some differences in the way the club ownership is set up in comparison to most other Premier League sides.

When Gillet and Hicks bought the club they set up a new company called Kop Holdings. This seems to have been done to allow them to borrow piles of money to do the deal. This is where the problems began.

As you look through the various pages on this site you will see some areas where it is purely about the "club", other areas the "group" is mentioned and included. Liverpool FC is the club, Kop Holdings is the new company which actually owns Liverpool FC.

As reported elsewhere the way the club is now set up means the club owes the group money. What Gillet and Hicks are trying to do is to get Liverpool FC to pay off the loans they took out to buy Liverpool FC. This is to no benefit to anyone except Gillet and Hicks. In the the "good old days" all club money stayed in the club, now it leaks out at a great rate, and goes into this Kop Holdings company that exists purely for the benefit of Gillet and Hicks.

The area where this shows up most clearly is in the "interest payments" section. The club had little in the way of interest payments up to the new ownership as it was a well run club with little or no bank loans. Now the club has huge interest payments to match the huge loans that the new owners took out to buy the club.

The other area that needs to be looked is the amount of money being spent on player transfer fees. In the last 4 seasons covered Rafa has spent £228m on new players. He may well have then sold them again but that is the amount that the club has sanctioned him spending.

The combination of high outgoings on players, and high out-goings on interest payments could well lead to a financial disaster if the club ended up not having the Champions League revenue, and/or a drop in income from Sky's prize money.

Last updated: 6 January 2010