Liverpool Chair Tom Werner "rubbished speculation" that Fenway Sports Group recently rejected an offer of £1.5B ($1.97B) for the club, according to James Pearce of the LIVERPOOL ECHO. The American businessman on Thursday said that there was "no truth" to reports in the Middle East that the owners had been involved in year-long negotiations with an investment consortium led by Dubai financier Amanda Staveley. Werner said, "We have better things to do than batting down rumors about negotiations with Ms. Staveley. However, there's no truth to them." Abu Dhabi-based publication The National claimed that Staveley and her firm, PCP Capital Partners, offered FSG an initial £1.2B ($1.58B) in cash for Liverpool "potentially rising" to £1.5B "dependent on Champions League performance" (
LIVERPOOL ECHO, 10/26). In Abu Dhabi, Mustafa Alrawi reported the Fenway Sports Group killed the sale "at the eleventh hour," believing that the economic outlook for the club was such that FSG could "realise a better price in the future," according to sources close to the negotiations. Staveley was also involved in an earlier and "ultimately fruitless" bid by Dubai investors for Liverpool in '08. Similarly, it was the actions of then-Owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett that "helped kill the deal at the last minute." This time, it "appeared that the deal would go through." FSG bought the club for £300M in '10. However, FSG "pulled the plug last month" because, the sources said, with global TV rights "expected to rapidly increase over the next two cycles," the group believed that the club was being "undervalued" (
THE NATIONAL, 10/26).
