Back in 2016, Liverpool as a club experienced our first real outrage at JW Henry and FSG, when it was announced that some Anfield tickets would cost £77 and season tickets would rise to £1,000+.
Here is what JW Henry came out and said following the Sunderland game that season in which fans left Anfield early in protest.
“On behalf of everyone at Fenway Sports Group and Liverpool Football Club we would like to apologise for the distress caused by our ticket pricing plan for the 2016-17 season. The three of us have been particularly troubled by the perception that we don’t care about our supporters, that we are greedy, and that we are attempting to extract personal profits at the club’s expense. Quite the opposite is true,” a statement signed by Henry and Mike Gordon read, cited in the Guardian.
“We believe we have demonstrated a willingness to listen carefully, reconsider our position, and act decisively. The unique and sacred relationship between Liverpool Football Club and its supporters has always been foremost in our minds. It represents the heartbeat of this extraordinary football club.”
The important part here is that five years ago, Henry promised to ‘listen carefully’.
But no listening has ever been done. Nobody close to the club – to what the club actually means – was ever consulted about the attempted trademarking of the city’s name.
Nobody was asked about Project Big Picture, the furloughing of staff during lockdown and not even Jurgen Klopp was consulted about the embarrassing Super League fiasco.
No listening, has ever been done. Henry’s apologies are brilliant. He nails them every time – but perhaps he should employ that same script writer to help garner fan opinion in the first place.
More like the fans are full of it. I’m starting to think going into administration would’ve been better seeing as most fans feel entitled to be consulted about every decision the club makes without contributing much. No ticket price increase, no staff furlough, no ESL, no to everything except buying mbappe, and the uproar about not buying decent defenders fast enough. Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is or shut up? You all claim you are “real” fans cos you can watch matches at Anfield but guess what? I live in Nigeria where the exchange rate is currently £1 to about 660 Naira but I still buy the LFC jersey and pay for shipping, I subscribe to DSTV so I can watch matches and since power outages are the norm here, have to buy fuel to generate power. Believe me I’d rather be in Liverpool paying $77 pounds to watch the team live.
You can’t throw shade at Man city for having oil moguls who spend whatever the manager wants and on the other hand claim FSG are greedy for trying to increase the club’s revenue. They have improved the squad a lot, expanded Anfield, are probably going to expand it some more, expanded the new training facilities, and by all standards have done a lot better than any other LFC owners at least in the premiere league era. So cut them some slack or come up with a practical, workable solution for the club to make money while buying new stars, keeping the current top performers, paying non playing staff as well as keeping the investors happy without increasing ticket prices while giving out free pints.
Totally agree with you. FSG has done a lot more good for the Club. Yes they are not perfect but they are also business men.
Thumbs up to TiredFan!