How much would you pay to have a piece of your favorite club? If you think you’ve heard this question before, let’s put it in its proper context—this ain’t no fifth division team. The Share Liverpool FC Group is interested in taking over the big-time EPL club from its Yankee owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. And like the previous group of wanna-be soccer entrepreneurs, this consortium is using the internet to get a worldwide group of 100,000 Reds fans to chip in £5,000 each for the club. If you’ve ever sat behind the guy who’s complaining about the prices for parking at the stadium, you know they’re going to have to cast a wide net.

Those behind the move are football business lecturer and Liverpool fan Rogan Taylor, former director of communications at the Premier League Phil French, and lawyer Kevin Jacquiss - an expert in launching co-operatives.

“The time is right to offer a different solution to the rising concerns that football fans have about the patterns of ownership developing at our major football clubs,” said Mr Taylor, who is director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool.

The model proposed will be a Barcelona style, “member-share” scheme, aimed at raising £500m to purchase the club from its US owners and build a new stadium.

Yes, about that building the stadium part. How exactly do you get 100,000 people to agree on what it should look like? We don’t even think they’re going to get past the “what kind of beer should be sold” discussion without at least one chair being thrown, let alone the design of a stadium. (The answer to the question is definitely not Carlsberg, by the way.)

Fans make Liverpool takeover move [BBC]
Image [lfcvancouver.com]