Liverpool investment news as billionaire NBA owner admits Premier League interest

An American billionaire has admitted he's still ‘assessing opportunities’ about investing in a Premier League club amid Liverpool links.

Owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) put the Reds on the market last November. Having purchased Liverpool for £300 million in 2010, it was not clear whether the American group were seeking a full or partial sale. Principal owner John Henry has since confirmed that FSG are only looking to part ways with a minority stake - said to be around 10-15%.

Several parties have been linked, with one being Steve Pagliuca. He's the co-owner of NBA team the Boston Celtics, while he is co-chairman of Serie A outfit Atalanta having spearheaded a group that purchased a 55% share in February 2022.

Pagliuca was also a contender to buy Chelsea but lost out to Todd Boehly's consortium in May 2022.

What’s more, the 68-year-old has not previously ruled himself out of investing in Liverpool, having shown interest before FSG completed their takeover. But while he remains keen on becoming involved in a Premier League club, the co-chairman of Bain Capital has expressed concern over the increasing influence of sovereign ownership in football.

Newcastle United are owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund while United Arab Emirates vice-president Sheikh Mansour owns Manchester City. Meanwhile, Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani is hoping to complete a Manchester United takeover.

Pagliuca, speaking to podcast Bloomberg Talks, said: "What I'm most concerned about for the Premier League and football in general is sovereigns buying clubs such as Newcastle and Manchester City.

“It's very hard to compete with that competitive balance and if you have that unlimited balance sheet to compete, you're at a disadvantage. In the NBA, there are no huge disparities in the systems we have, in the NFL there are not huge disparities in terms of player payroll.

“Football in Europe really has to look at the system and figure out a way to preserve the balance. A league like the Premier League, if three or four teams are owned by a sovereign with basically unlimited investment, to be in the Champions League there is basically only one spot left for the other 16 teams that don't have those kind of resources. I think they're going to have to find a way to address that.”

Asked if he was still interested in buying a Premier League club, Pagliuca responded: “We're assessing opportunities there. I think there's a higher bar there than there would have been in terms that you have to be sure you have an academy and a structure where you can keep up with the economic disparity.

“In Boston, we want championships. That's our attitude and at Atalanta, we want to win as well. We just have to do that in a strategic way and if the gap grows so much, it's almost impossible to make the Champions League unless you're one of the high-funded sovereign teams. It makes it less attractive to buy a Premier League team and you bang your head against the wall.

“A top-four club isn't for sale so you can only look at the next 16 and the next 16 are going to have an advantage if they have that financial backing where they're outspending them.”

Pagliuca also feels that there is pay disparity across European football and it needs to become more even like it is in the NBA.

He added: “A sovereign can enter the [NBA] system but the partnership with the players, we now have a system that promoted competitive balance. There are no 10-1 disparity levels of salary levels between any team and there are a lot of shared revenues. You don't have that big gap you have in European football. In European football, you can have a team with a $500 million pay roll playing a team with a $40 million pay roll and that doesn't happen in the NBA.

“With the system of second apron and taxation, that gap is going to get smaller so the teams will have competitive balance. That's good for the players, for the league and you've seen our revenues, we had record growth and the player participate in a 50-50 partnership in all that. everyone is aligned, Adam [Silver, CEO] and the committee did a great job with the players because when the NBA grows, everyone wins.

“We have labour peace, more stars in the game than we've ever have and five different winners in the past five years which is exciting because everyone has a chance to win. We need to think about that in terms of European football.”