Eagle » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:32 am wrote:You still haven’t explained how selling Coutinho makes FSG more money. Your incoherent ramblings about increased revenue streams for the club doesn’t answer the question. Increased revenue streams and money from player sales isn’t being used to pay for a leveraged buyout like the Glazers and FSG haven’t taken a single dividend like Kroenke does at Arsenal. You want to know how much cash the shareholders of FSG have personally earned in their 7 years of charge so far? £0. That’s right, nothing.
Did they take over the club because they thought it was a good investment opportunity? Of course they did. They saw a club that had been run poorly for 20 years and had fallen badly behind their rivals off and on the field. They thought they could do better on the commercial side of things. They thought they could do better with stadium expansion. They thought they could do better with ensuring the club generates money to use on the football side of things. And they are largely doing all this.
You know how they will make money from the club? By making the club successful on and off the pitch and giving the club the means to do this long term. By making the club self-sufficient in the same way as Man Utd, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, etc. And what’s wrong with that? So what if they sell the club on for a large profit down the line having expanded the stadium, improved the training facilities, improved revenue streams that can be used to fund player purchases and wages, and put us back amongst Europe’s elite. I’m sorry that it upsets you that neither of the 2 confirmed interested parties when we were publicly up for sale were sugar daddies who were willing to throw their own money away and change things over night. But the next best things it to have responsible owners who build for the long term. And this is what FSG are.
And who said FSG stopped Klopp from buying players in the January windows? He said himself that he can buy if he wants to but he can’t find what he wants as January is tough. So on what basis can you put the blame at FSG’s feet? Are you saying that Klopp is not telling the truth when he says these things.
The original point is that you said the owners are chomping at the bit to “cash in” on our best players. This is bollox. The only players that have left are those that pushed hard for a move. If Coutinho had made it clear that he was happy at Liverpool but would go if we wanted to accept the £150mil offer from Barcelona, he would still be here.
So amid all that waffle you admit that they are here to make money. Fine, we got there in the end.
As I said they are Americans who grew up watching baseball, they had no interest in footy and would still have no interest in footy if there wasn't obscene amounts of cash swilling around at the top of the game. The chance to make money attracted them here, not the chance to win silverware, in fact they sacked Kenny Dalglish after he took us to the 2 domestic cup finals in one season, Ian Ayre basically said in an interview at the time that the owners weren't interested in the domestic Cups because there was no money in them.
They sold Coutinho at the first opportunity it became politically acceptable, Coutinho even thanked FSG for not going back on their word in the summer so all that charade about him not being for sale and the club not returning Barca's calls was purely for us suckers.
Barcelona say that they were surprised how keen we were to sell Phil, Nike prematurely release a kit with Phil's name on it (something a company like Nike wouldn't do in 5 minutes or on a whim) and Phil publically thanks FSG for standing by their promise to sell him in the summer and you still think the club was bounced into it against their will in January?
When you are in the business of making money some deals are just too good to turn down, buy a player for £8m and sell him for £140m? There was no way they were going to turn down a deal like that.