When Liverpool and Real Madrid collided on Tuesday night in the sort of atmosphere unique to Anfield on European occasions, they did so as sporting equals.
They may have only met once before in a competitive tie prior to this year's Champions League, the 1981 European Cup final, but as the most successful sides in the competition's history, with 14 titles between them, they dine at its highest table.
At Madrid they expect nothing less, and as the richest club in Europe they have resources to match their ambitions. At Liverpool expectations are just as high, but financial realities mean that they punch above their weight every time they pass the last 16 stage in Europe.
In financial terms Liverpool are quarter-finalists at best, ranked only seventh in the recent Deloitte's European money list with an annual revenue of £167 million dwarfed by Real's table-topping £290 million. Domestically, the club trail a distant fourth to their Premier League rivals.
The internal feuding between co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks, outgoing chief executive Rick Parry and manager Rafael Benitez has dominated attention for the last six months, but closing the financial gap is the club's priority.
The raw numbers are chastening. Liverpool's commercial earnings last season were £51.5 million, £10 million less than Chelsea's, £13 million short of Manchester United's and better than Arsenal's £44 million only because the Gunners took a large portion of their £90 million deal with Emirates up front.
The gap in match-day revenue is even more startling. United take more than £3 million-a-game courtesy of Old Trafford's 76,000 seats, 9,000 of which are part of corporate hospitality packages, and generated £101 million last season.
Arsenal, with 7,000 premium seats in the 60,000 Emirates selling in the nearby City of London market, generated £94.6 million. Even Chelsea, with a comparable capacity, brought in £74.5 million, a full £25 million more than the £39.2 million generated at Anfield last season.
There are many on Merseyside who will tell you that the relative scarcity of corporate seats at Anfield – just 2,800 of the 46,000 come with prawn sandwiches – is one of the prime reasons for the sort of crackling atmosphere generated last night. It is a source of pride that the club have, relatively speaking, resisted the commercialisation so prevalent elsewhere.
The fans may cherish Anfield's authenticity but for owners with acquisition loans to service and expansion plans to realise, closing the financial gap is a priority. To do that they will have to overhaul a commercial operation that has been left standing by their rivals, and more importantly build the 73,000 capacity stadium that Hicks and Gillett promised when they bought the club.
The commercial failings of the club is the principal reason for the removal of Parry as chief executive, a move engineered by Hicks, now clearly the dominant partner in the dysfunctional relationship with Gillett.
With Parry leaving in May, responsibility for financial growth is in the hands of Ian Ayre, the former Huddersfield chief executive appointed as the clubs first commercial director by Hicks in 2007.
Ayre acknowledges the club have fallen behind, but is confident that they can make ground quickly. "It's fair to say that we should be stronger commercially given that we are the most successful club in English football historically," he told The Daily Telegraph. "The challenge is different here though, because you have to preserve the very unique values and history of this club. For every supporter who says we should be squeezing more money from the brand you'll find one who wants the unique nature of it protected. We have to respect that view, because there are people at Anfield every week for whom the club means everything."
Squaring that circle will never be easy, but with owners schooled in the hyper-commercial American sports market change is inevitable. Ayre is already targeting Asia, mindful that no English club have made a sustained impact on the market, and has plans for a number of new products including a touring version of the Anfield museum close to fruition.
The club are also targeting a greatly increased shirt-sponsorship deal. Carlsberg pay just £7 million a year for their deal with the owners confident that they can more than double that.
A new stadium will do more than any sponsorship to elevate Liverpool into the European commercial elite, with the new Anfield predicted to raise at least £50 million more per season while maintaining corporate seats at about five per cent of capacity.
"We have real support for the stadium plans because the supporters know it will be good for everyone. We're like a family that has outgrown its home, and its time to move on to a place where we can give all our supporters a fantastic experience as well as providing a magnet for tourism and the city," Ayre said.
Realising that vision will be the biggest challenge of all. The stadium plans have been approved and planning permission received, but with the credit markets frozen and uncertainty over the ownership of the club persisting, there is no prospect of work starting any time soon.
Until the search for fresh investors to break the Hicks-Gillett deadlock is successful, Liverpool will continue to compete in the slipstream of richer continental rivals.
They may have only met once before in a competitive tie prior to this year's Champions League, the 1981 European Cup final, but as the most successful sides in the competition's history, with 14 titles between them, they dine at its highest table.
At Madrid they expect nothing less, and as the richest club in Europe they have resources to match their ambitions. At Liverpool expectations are just as high, but financial realities mean that they punch above their weight every time they pass the last 16 stage in Europe.
In financial terms Liverpool are quarter-finalists at best, ranked only seventh in the recent Deloitte's European money list with an annual revenue of £167 million dwarfed by Real's table-topping £290 million. Domestically, the club trail a distant fourth to their Premier League rivals.
The internal feuding between co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks, outgoing chief executive Rick Parry and manager Rafael Benitez has dominated attention for the last six months, but closing the financial gap is the club's priority.
The raw numbers are chastening. Liverpool's commercial earnings last season were £51.5 million, £10 million less than Chelsea's, £13 million short of Manchester United's and better than Arsenal's £44 million only because the Gunners took a large portion of their £90 million deal with Emirates up front.
The gap in match-day revenue is even more startling. United take more than £3 million-a-game courtesy of Old Trafford's 76,000 seats, 9,000 of which are part of corporate hospitality packages, and generated £101 million last season.
Arsenal, with 7,000 premium seats in the 60,000 Emirates selling in the nearby City of London market, generated £94.6 million. Even Chelsea, with a comparable capacity, brought in £74.5 million, a full £25 million more than the £39.2 million generated at Anfield last season.
There are many on Merseyside who will tell you that the relative scarcity of corporate seats at Anfield – just 2,800 of the 46,000 come with prawn sandwiches – is one of the prime reasons for the sort of crackling atmosphere generated last night. It is a source of pride that the club have, relatively speaking, resisted the commercialisation so prevalent elsewhere.
The fans may cherish Anfield's authenticity but for owners with acquisition loans to service and expansion plans to realise, closing the financial gap is a priority. To do that they will have to overhaul a commercial operation that has been left standing by their rivals, and more importantly build the 73,000 capacity stadium that Hicks and Gillett promised when they bought the club.
The commercial failings of the club is the principal reason for the removal of Parry as chief executive, a move engineered by Hicks, now clearly the dominant partner in the dysfunctional relationship with Gillett.
With Parry leaving in May, responsibility for financial growth is in the hands of Ian Ayre, the former Huddersfield chief executive appointed as the clubs first commercial director by Hicks in 2007.
Ayre acknowledges the club have fallen behind, but is confident that they can make ground quickly. "It's fair to say that we should be stronger commercially given that we are the most successful club in English football historically," he told The Daily Telegraph. "The challenge is different here though, because you have to preserve the very unique values and history of this club. For every supporter who says we should be squeezing more money from the brand you'll find one who wants the unique nature of it protected. We have to respect that view, because there are people at Anfield every week for whom the club means everything."
Squaring that circle will never be easy, but with owners schooled in the hyper-commercial American sports market change is inevitable. Ayre is already targeting Asia, mindful that no English club have made a sustained impact on the market, and has plans for a number of new products including a touring version of the Anfield museum close to fruition.
The club are also targeting a greatly increased shirt-sponsorship deal. Carlsberg pay just £7 million a year for their deal with the owners confident that they can more than double that.
A new stadium will do more than any sponsorship to elevate Liverpool into the European commercial elite, with the new Anfield predicted to raise at least £50 million more per season while maintaining corporate seats at about five per cent of capacity.
"We have real support for the stadium plans because the supporters know it will be good for everyone. We're like a family that has outgrown its home, and its time to move on to a place where we can give all our supporters a fantastic experience as well as providing a magnet for tourism and the city," Ayre said.
Realising that vision will be the biggest challenge of all. The stadium plans have been approved and planning permission received, but with the credit markets frozen and uncertainty over the ownership of the club persisting, there is no prospect of work starting any time soon.
Until the search for fresh investors to break the Hicks-Gillett deadlock is successful, Liverpool will continue to compete in the slipstream of richer continental rivals.
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