Liverpool takeover news as finance expert makes £300m and ‘lucrative tours’ claims

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes a 10-15% sale of Liverpool could be very lucrative for Fenway Sports Group (FSG).

At the start of November, it came to light that FSG had put the Reds on the market. They've owned the club since 2010, with the Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup, two Carabao Cups and Club World Cup won under the American group's tenure.

A host of parties have been linked with possible investment in Liverpool. They include Qatar Investment Authority and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment of late.

FSG are said to prefer a partial rather than a complete sale of Liverpool.

And speaking to theGegenPod Football Podcast, Maguire - a lecturer at the University of Liverpool - reckons John Henry & Co. favour that model as it could prove worthwhile in the future.

Maguire said: “Certainly speaking to people I'm connected with, Fenway Sports Group are probably only looking for a 10-15% sale of Liverpool. They've tested the market and not really got a big response at the high levels of price.

“They paid £300 million for it from [Tom] Hicks and [George] Gillett. If they sold 10% of it then they could get their 10% back and effectively have the best of both worlds. It is effectively, therefore, zero cost to the owners and they still own 90% of the club.

“Going forward in football, the type of things that owners are looking for - which is a smaller Premier League ideally of 16 teams that would mean more lucrative tours and expanded European competitions. To have 90% of that coming in would be very beneficial for the elite clubs although the mid-tier clubs - what you might call Aston Villa and Leeds and West Ham - it would be an absolute disaster.”