"Tomorrow - let's burn another £110,000"
Flags, marches, discussions, rally’s, email campaigns, strongly worded banners, fantastic Photoshop mock-up graphics.
I’ve seen and heard them all, and been involved in a few in the past 12 months or so as slowly, but surely, the Liverpool FC supporting fanbase have come to realise that Liverpool isn’t just in trouble – it is in serious decline.
This weekend I was expecting a big statement of intent – a big determination that a vocal area of Liverpool FC fans was going to make a stand, draw a line in the sand and insist that the destruction of Liverpool FC would not be allowed to continue.
That statement wasn’t forthcoming.
According to the overwhelming majority of Liverpool supporters on the forum it really is time to punish the clubs owners where it really will hurt. Not on advertising hoardings in Liverpool – not on pre-match marches thousands of miles away from where they sleep comfortably in bed – not even through emails that are filtered out and emptied in to online trashcan’s. No. The only message they will receive is the one that hits their wallet.
Under the present owners Liverpool FC are over £350M in debt. The club has not had a transfer budget in almost 3 years. We are scrambling around with mediocrity for our next manager (who will also have no money to buy players), rumours suggest more top players are on the way out of the club, the proposed Anfield stadium looks even more of a pipe dream than it did 3 years ago and we continue to burn money at an astonishing rate.
A Liverpool season ticket holder will see his annual payment (of around £700) ignited within 6 minutes. Money saved for a year by a fan effectively torched by the clubs owners in the time of a commercial break. That’s every 6 minutes, of every hour, of every day.
Liverpool FC simply cannot afford to continue burning £1M every 9 days on bank interest. The Royal Bank of Scotland may be rubbing their hands with glee at this money landing in their coffers, but with each passing day Liverpool FC is coming closer to financial meltdown.
Tom Hicks and George Gillett are holding out for £800M (for a club they bought for £200M) in 2007. RBS will be in no rush to order them to sell as long as the interest is flying in.
So I’m going to do the best I can to ensure that Hicks and Gillett lower their valuation of the club.
Last year I estimated I helped prop up the owners by handing the owners around £600 in ticket money. I’m sure a lot of other fans went to more games – I’m sure a lot went to less.
But for now my donation to their cause is over. And I am supporting Not A Penny More.
I will not be attending Anfield until the present owners have left the club. I will not be purchasing a single item from the official club store. I will not be counted as one of their customers when they try to value the club at £800M. I will not financially support the continued destruction of the football club I love. I will not finance two owners who have discredited our club and rode roughshod over its supporters.
This ‘customer’ is officially on strike. My conscience will be clear and I will know I am doing the level best I can to expedite the end of this distasteful period in the club’s history.
Judging by many of the comments I have read from other like-minded fans I know I am not walking alone.