“Liverpool’s £20m buying cap revealed in club report” reads the headline in The Independent this morning. A headline relating to the leaked documents which reveal “Liverpool’s net summer spending will be locked at £20m until 2014 – a figure which will also include wage increases accruing from contract renewals”.
These leaked documents where posted on a host of Liverpool forums over a week ago.
The documents also detail a proposed 8% increase in ticket prices each season. Ticket prices were frozen this summer due to the current financial troubles.
While many of the papers will spin the leaked documents with their own agenda, fans should keep in mind you shouldn’t believe everything you read. As TIA’s Dylan Pemberton explains;
“These are pretty standard financials, nothing unusual about any club collating this type of information within this type of document – I’d be worried if they didn’t. So the fact a club does this type of prudent and conservative forecasting is nothing to be worried or surprised about. It’s not necessarily a prospectus of any type – all clubs and indeed all large businesses will do something like this for internal stakeholders, sponsors, financiers etc. so don’t let it be automatically spun that way. Even if it was, every business is technically up for sale at any point in time so it would be standard commercial practice to have well presented financial forecasts regularly prepared.”
It should also be noted these documents are believed to be from early this year, prior to the owners extending their loans and the £20m per year sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered. Therefore the club’s proposals may well have changed.
Elsewhere today, Spirit of Shankly, the Liverpool Supporter’s Union, have released the minutes of their meeting with Reds managing director Christian Purslow. Purslow indicated to SOS that the total debt owed by the Club and its associated companies was approximately £245m. He also insisted the new stadium will project will go ahead and hinted it could begin next year when the global financial crisis eases.
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