IT IS never a happy prospect to be staring at a possible Champions League exit and bonfire of title hopes even before November 5th but for Liverpool this autumn’s struggle for form is particularly ill-timed. Pride, history and the nagging sense of unfulfilled promise soak Anfield with highly-strung, permanent expectation, but at a time like this, to put it bluntly, they cannot afford to fail.
This run of four consecutive defeats, which is already seriously threatening Liverpool’s fortunes in the Premier League and in Europe, has come as hired professionals scour the world for money to shore up the club.
Liverpool’s north American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, have produced not a sod of the new stadium they promised to build when they arrived in 2007, but have saddled Liverpool with debt, including the €193.1 million cost of their own takeover.
In the summer, they did manage to refinance their borrowings, reportedly with a commitment to reduce the €346 million the club owed down to €277 million. That was not an apparent boost to Rafael Benitez’s transfer kitty, and still leaves Liverpool seriously stretched.
In their 44,500-seat home, Liverpool have for years now been the relatively poor relations in the Premier League’s top four; their income last year, €176 million, was way below that of Arsenal and Chelsea, and almost €111 million behind Manchester United, who loom as the next Premier League opponents at Anfield on Sunday.
Financially, Liverpool rely more than those other three clubs on the euros which come from the Champions League, because they earn less domestically, in a north west city which cannot support the comparatively extravagant ticket prices of Stamford Bridge or the Emirates.
The defeats so far in the Champions League to Fiorentina, then Lyon on a flat European night at Anfield on Tuesday, mean Liverpool have a daunting task if they are to qualify for the knockout stage. They face a real challenge away at Lyon on the eve of Guy Fawkes night, and even if they win there, and beat Fiorentina and Debreceni in their other two games, they could still not qualify if the other results go well enough for Fiorentina and Lyon.
The financial hit from failing to qualify for the knockout stage is substantial, although not as calamitous as it would be for Liverpool to lose to Manchester United, fail to pull round their Premier League form and drop out of the top four.
Uefa share out the Champions League sponsorship and TV income according to a complicated formula which rewards clubs for the size of the TV market in their home country.
As England are a large nation of football-on-telly watchers, their clubs share major payments from this “market pool” even at the group stages. The “market pool” payment does increase as a club qualifies through the knockout stage, although it is less if the other clubs, from the same country, progress too.
It is therefore impossible to put a figure on what Liverpool might lose out on if they fail to qualify from their group, but last season, when they reached the quarter-final while Arsenal and Chelsea reached the semi-final and United the final, the knockout stage was worth around €8.9 million to Liverpool. This season, the cost would be greater, because Uefa has provisionally announced an increase in Champions League TV and sponsorship deals, from €820 million to €1.05 billion. It is safe to say if Liverpool were to be knocked out, they would fall markedly behind financially, especially if the other three clubs go through.
Failing to qualify at all for next season’s competition, a prospect nobody at Anfield is prepared to contemplate with barely two months of the season gone, would involve missing out on a very important slice of Liverpool’s income. Last season’s earnings were €26 million from Uefa directly, plus unspecified income earned at Anfield from the Champions League matches themselves, and the money available next season, which four English clubs will certainly be earning, will be almost 25 per cent higher.
The arrival of Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, with ambitions for the top four and the money to support it, together with a generous cheque book unfolded for Harry Redknapp at Spurs, make Liverpool’s claim on Champions League qualification subject to fierce competition.
Last month Hicks and Gillett issued a rare joint statement confirming they have appointed two banks to look for new investors, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are said to be in the Middle East pursuing the rich men who could wipe all these troubles away.
Yet despite rumours, and the excitement over whether Prince Faisal bin Fahad bin Abdulla of Saudi Arabia was going to invest, there are as yet no signs of anybody solid. At City, Mansour’s advisers have explained an attraction of the club was there was no stadium to build, so they could spend millions directly on buying players to fulfil football, not construction, ambitions. Having a €508 million new stadium to build is not the best sales pitch.
So for now, Liverpool remain seriously in debt, with a manager about whom questions are being asked seriously for the first time, two owners perpetually seeming at odds with each other, and a team seeking some form, fast.
However, there was some good news for Benitez last night as Alberto Aquilani made his debut with a 15-minute run-out for the reserves in their 2-0 win over Sunderland at Prenton Park
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