Ian Ayre spoke openly this week about his desire to expand Liverpool’s brand name in the Far East. The Reds travel to Malaysia and Indonesia as part of our upcoming pre-season tour and our chief executive is determined to keep this trend going in the future.
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“The next step is to have a physical presence in Asia,” he told the Daily Mirror. “We’ve had people working on the ground in Singapore for some years now and have engaged with our core partners, but we’re looking to expand that and get closer to our commercial market there.
“Our relationship with Garuda Indonesian Airlines, who are a big sponsor, is very important to us and they now fly into London. It’s not important to be first, it’s important to do it right.
“From my own experience of working in Asia I know that success will come down to having local people working in local offices, in local languages, doing business locally. We had a similar plan in place for our media business and now have 40 social media channels in 16 or 17 languages and 40million regular followers.”
Of course, an important part of growing a brand is to have someone with the fans in that part of the world to connect with, someone that they feel is one of their own. As much as we hate to praise them for anything, it’s something Manchester United did with some success when they signed Park Ji-sung a few years ago.
With that in mind, here are five players we could look to sign to do the business for us…
5) Atsuto Uchida (Japan & Schalke)
If Brendan Rodgers needs a new right-back to provide back-up for Nathaniel Clyne, he could do a lot worse than this 27-year-old star, who has more than 100 games worth of experience in the Bundesliga. The 71-time Japan international has only been a semi-regular at Schalke for the last couple of years and could be content with playing a similar role at Anfield. He won’t set the world alight for us on the pitch but he could do well for us off it.
4) Omar Abdulrahman (UAE & Al Ain)
There’s been a lot of interest in this talented young forward in recent years. Arsenal were among a list of clubs interested in giving him a trial last year (via Sky Sports) but so far nothing has come of those rumours. The 23-year-old, who also spent time with Manchester City in 2012, has scored 28 goals and provided 53 assists in 111 games for his club side thus far, while he’s also netted four times and set up an impressive 17 more for the UAE.
3) Ki Sung-yueng (South Korea & Swansea City)
This should be a much more familiar name to Liverpool fans. The Korean has spent three years in the Premier League – two with Swansea and one on loan at Sunderland. He’s proved himself to be a highly capable midfielder, scoring an impressive eight Premier League goals last season, including the first of the new campaign in the Swans’ victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford. It seems we have reason to like him already!
2) Keisuke Honda (Japan & AC Milan)
A name that has been linked with Liverpool in the past (via the Metro). He’s best known as a winger or an attacking midfielder, but he’s also played as a deep-lying playmaker in the past and that kind of versatility could fit in nicely for us, with our current squad arguably short of technically gifted midfielder such as Honda. The 29-year-old is currently in Italy, where he has scored eight goals in 46 appearances over the last 18 months.
1) Son Heung-min (South Korea & Bayer Leverkusen)
Another name who should be familiar to Liverpool fans, thanks to rumours such as this from the Daily Mail. The 22-year-old forward looks set to be the next big thing to come out of the continent, having already scored 29 goals in his first 85 games for Leverkusen. He previously netted 20 times in just 78 games for Hamburg and he’s surely only going to get better as he reaches the peak years of his career. A talented all-round forward, he’d be a top buy.
