| Kippreport.com

Liverpool to get new owner?

September 28, 2009 1:16 by kippreport

A Saudi royal, Prince Faisal bin Fahd bin Abdullah, is planning to buy a stake in Liverpool Football Club, which according to reports could be worth up to $559 million. “Prince Faisal is in London now discussing the purchase,” Azhari Kowa, a spokesman for the prince’s Fama Group, told AFP. The club is owned by Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett, who have reportedly been seeking investors from the Middle East for around two years.

“We are currently seeking to buy 50 percent of the shares in the club which is now suffering of debts worth £245 million (around $390 million),” Saudi’s Al-Riyadh newspaper quoted Prince Faisal  as saying.   ”It is going to be finalized soon. It will cost us £200 to £350 million ($319 to $559 million dollars),” he told the paper.

According to AFP, the acquisition will be made by F6 Group, a sports investment company that belongs to Prince Faisal.

However, sources close to the Liverpool owners told UK-based daily The Guardian that the prince is only interested in an agreement with Gillett to sponsor Liverpool’s planned sports academies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, a report in the Daily Mail claims that Hicks is expected to turn down the offer from Prince Faisal.

This is not the first time that there have been speculations about the takeover of Liverpool; earlier this year, reports circulated that it was being eyed by Dubai International Capital (DIC). DIC was close to buying the club in January 2007, but pulled out when Liverpool refused to agree to a deadline on the deal. DIC also refused to pay $300 million for a 15 percent stake in Liverpool in October the same year.

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Tags: football clubs, investors, Liverpool, Manchester city, Middle East, Saudi, Sulaiman Al Fahim