When Fenway Sports Group purchased Liverpool for £300m in October of 2010, principal owner John W. Henry declared that FSG were “here to win” and assured supporters that their primary focus was “returning the club to greatness on and off the field for the long term.”
But who are Fenway Sports Group and what is their net-worth?
Fenway Sports Group, previously known as ‘New England Sports Venture’s’, is an American Sports Company and partner company of major basketball side Boston Red Sox’s and most importantly for Liverpool FC.
Their purchase of the club put an end to the detested ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillet who had landed the club in £350m worth of debt with losses of up to £50m – placing Liverpool on the brink of administration.
Tom Hicks and George Gillet
On the pitch, Liverpool faced one of the worst managerial reigns in the club’s history under Roy Hodgson as they continued to fall further towards the relegation zone before the Englishman was sacked on January 9, 2011, and later replaced with Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish.
The sports company was founded in 2001 after John W. Henry led a successful bid for the Red Sox alongside a number of investors including Tom Werner and The New York Times Company. Since then, FSG has become as one of the richest sports conglomerates in the world with a net worth of $6.6 billion – ranking them just behind Stan Kroenke’s Kroenke Sports ($8.4 billion) and Jerry Jones ($6.9 billion)
John W. Henry himself, who became a multi-millionaire through commodities trading, holds an estimated net worth of around $2.6 billion and owns a 40% stake in FSG as well as the Boston Globe newspaper which he bought in 2013 for £70m.
John W. Henry
The rebuild of Liverpool has been a gradual process with FSG over the past decade but the Reds have been able to re-establish themselves as a dominant force in European football under the leadership of Jurgen Klopp and look set to secure their first league title in over 30 years.
Despite the club’s recent success, the American owners have not always been popular figures during their time at Anfield.
In 2016, thousands of fans walked out of Anfield during the 77th minute of Liverpool’s league clash with Sunderland to protest against the proposal of £77 ticket prices for the newly developed main stand before Henry and co made a complete U-turn on the decision – stating that they had been troubled by the perception that they did not care about supporters.
Similarly, FSG’s decision to pay 80% of staff wages through the government’s furlough scheme during the coronavirus pandemic came under heavy criticism before Peter Moore, Liverpool’s CEO, announced that the club had come to the “wrong conclusion” on the matter. Even more recently, many supporters now believe that FSG are more interested in lining their own pockets rather than investing in the first team squad given that, since the summer of 2018, the club has spent just £8.5m in the transfer market.
