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Sir Martin Broughton has given his thoughts on the current situations surrounding investment opportunities at Anfield and Old Trafford with both clubs having recently been put up for sale.
The former Liverpool FC chairman who oversaw the sale of the club to Fenway Sports Group in 2010, is currently doing the media rounds to promote his book ‘Whenever I Hear That Song’ which was published this month.
Broughton was part of a failed bid to buy Chelsea last summer and he believes his knowledge from that enables him to offer some opinion about what’s happening surrounding two of England’s footballing giants.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Broughton commented that being based in London and not the North West was more of an attraction to some potential investors.
He said: “I would question whether they’ll (both clubs) get the kind of prices they floated.
“With Chelsea – and I think Arsenal and Tottenham would fall into the same category – the people we spoke to tended to be overseas billionaires who had a pad in London and the pad in London was in Knightsbridge or Kensington, Chelsea or something. So when they came to London, they went to Chelsea. They were football fans, and they were Chelsea fans. They’re not going to be bidders for Liverpool or Manchester United because they’ve got a pad in London and they’re not planning to move their pad to Manchester or Liverpool. So it’s a different type of buyer to the ones that we were looking for with our consortium [so they won’t pay inflated prices].”
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While the capital is obviously going to attract big money, both Newcastle United and Manchester City didn’t struggle to find serious investments from the Middle East. Broughton isn’t saying that Liverpool and United won’t attract interest, he just believes that the rumoured valuations of both clubs could be too high for some.
The Chelsea fan added: “Liverpool will be best off taking in co-investors to ensure the current owners can work alongside them and be satisfied that these are the right people. As I understand it, they (FSG) are interested to see what the market reaction is. They could be willing sellers. They could be willing to have investors, but if they carry on owning it, that’s fine too. That’s my understanding of their position.
“I did say to them at the outset that I might get involved. I never asked for any financial information. I did one or two inquiries with people that I thought might be interested but it didn’t go any further. So now I’m just looking at it with a keen interest.
“I personally think John Henry and Tom Werner are not just very good owners, but keen to have a good legacy and want to make sure that we’re passing it to good owners.
“In a sense, they had the benefit of taking over from people that the fans hated. So they had everything in their favour as long as they did what they said they were going to do, which the did – they had the following wind.
“They’re a difficult act to follow. To be a better owner than Fenway is quite difficult.”
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