What could FSG’s interest in Malaga mean for Liverpool?

This is an updated version of a story published for the first time in March 2024.

Since the appointment of Michael Edwards as CEO of football at the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) in March 2024, it was clear that the Multi-Club property model is coming to Anfield.

Edwards, former sports director of Liverpool, has returned to the FSG Fold with the belief that the club has other choice but to expand if it is “to remain competitive” in the Premier League and beyond. The key is an ambitious plan to invest in a partner club.

On Saturday, Atletico shown FSG is exploring an agreement for the purchase of Malaga of the second Spanish level. So what do we know at this stage?

What exactly is FSG’s strategic vision?

The FSG multi-club plans mean being in line with the crowd of the Premier League, effectively. Well over half of the 20 teams of the flight in English now has relationships with at least another European club and the model has been extended in the last two years.

This is Liverpool that has to keep up with the Jones, As the president of FSG Mike Gordon outlined in an e -mail at the staff last year after Edwards’s appointment.

“Global football has changed immensely in recent years, becoming increasingly sophisticated and creating a myriad of challenges,” wrote Gordon. “To remain competitive, we must identify all the available routes for us to obtain an advantage. To this end, Michael (Edwards) will use all the tools at his disposal and has already identified the acquisition of another club as a channel that will help fortify our general functioning and guide our competitive ambitions”.

Liverpool had previously resisted the trend set by The property of Manchester City, which has accumulated 13 teams all over the world under the City Football Group (CFG) banner -Tra to whom Girona in Spain, Palermo in Italy and New York City in the United States-But there is a acceptance that the advantages of a multi-club model cannot be neglected.

“This does not in any way remove the focus, attention, care and, above all, the investment in Liverpool,” added Gordon. “In fact, we see him as a path that will help to strengthen our club for the future.”

The Spanish club Girona is part of the City Football Group (David Ramos/Getty Images)

Has long been questioned FSG was open to the purchase of another football team Run next to Liverpool. There were connections with up to four sides in Brazil – Cruzeiro, Botafogo, Athletic Paranaense and Internacional – but Billy Hogan, CEO of Liverpool, suggested in 2023 that this had stopped being a priority.

“For some clubs, (Multi-Club property) makes sense,” Hogan said during the Sportspro Media APAC conference in Singapore. “But from our point of view, at the moment, we are focused on what Liverpool is doing.”

The door has never been closed, but Edwards’s return presented an appropriate time to press early with the strategy. The possibility of expanding the FSG stable was a factor in the silence of Edwards initial reticence for a return of Liverpool.

“One of the major factors in my decision is the commitment to acquire and supervise an additional club, making this area of ​​their organization grow,” Edwards said in a declaration of FSG after its appointment. “I believe that to remain competitive, investments and expansion of the current football portfolio are needed”.

This last word is the key. For Liverpool, this is no longer a strategic, but essential choice.

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Why is Malaga consider?

There is a model for clubs targeted by those who in the Premier League looking for expansion: large enough to compete in the maximum division of a national competition without costing the land to buy.

The South American market, in particular Brazil, was previously evaluated by FSG, but the preference for this first step was always a team in Europe.

Brexit, the United Kingdom vote to withdraw from the European Union (EU) in 2016, led to complications in the recruitment, making it more difficult for overseas players to obtain a work permit to join the British clubs.

Having one in a nation member of the EU helps to circumvent these rules, presenting the possibility of a player to build his qualifying criteria in the United Kingdom in another League. It could also give a temporary home to the promising under 18s from continental Europe that are no longer suitable for signing for English clubs. The push to form partnerships with the European sides in the years following Brexit was not a coincidence.

For FSG, Malaga adapts well to the bill.

The move aligns with the group’s interest in the acquisition of teams with strong traditions and growth potential, similar to its previous interest for Bordeaux. In July last year, FSG retired from the interviews to buy the French club “Follow extensive and constructive discussions with all interested parties”.

Malaga has a story of being a high -level team and competing in Europe, but in recent years it has undergone a decline, falling in the third level of Spain. They were promoted to the second division last season and FSG believes that there is the opportunity to restore the club, which were quarters of finalists of the Champions League in 2013, at the top of the Spanish match.

The Rosaleda Stadium, the house of Malaga (Quality Sports Pictures/Images of Getty)

A delegation from FSG visited the Malaga headquarters in February as part of this process.

Nothing is still concluded and no agreement for Malaga would not necessarily be simple. As reported by Dermot Corrigan Saturday, a judge has controlled the club since 2020 among complex legal issues around a sale proposed to the local Bluebay Hotels groups, which currently have about half of its actions. The judicial ministries are also investigating the alleged undue appropriation of the club’s funds during the presidency of the businessman of Qatar Abdullah Bin Nasser al-Thani, who has always maintained his innocence.

The FSG seems to explore more options, having conducted due diligence and visits of the site on several Spanish teams in the last year – including Levante, Elche, Espanyol, Getafe and Valladolid, with the French market the other main focus of its evaluations.

What are the advantages for Liverpool of the Multi-Club model?

It is not a term that no manager likes to use-don’t when it is so denigratory for those who are at the bottom of a multi-club-ma pyramid the opportunity to use these other teams as a “power club” has a growing appeal to those of the Premier League.

In addition to the edge that can offer in the recruitment of young people, it also gives the possibility of developing Liverpool’s talent. There is greater control on the progression of a young man if sent on loan to a club partner, with the multi-club model that generally asks all his teams to play in the same style.

Chelsea Todd’s co -owner summarized the reasons well enough. “Our goal is to make sure that we can show paths for our young superstars to get on the Chelsea field while they made them a real game time,” he said in 2023.

The co-owner of Chelsea Boehly has its multi-club model (Chris Bruskill/fantasy/Getty images)

Young people can be lent to club partner clubs knowing that they will get opportunities and minutes on a competitive level, something that cannot always be taken for granted. This may not lead to that player who eventually enjoys a career with the largest club in the stable, but probably will see them built a greater residual value. In these periods of strengthened rules of profit and sustainability (PSR), these are the earnings that can make the difference.

There is also the opportunity to share scouting analysis and data when part of a multi-club model, launching the largest network and also, such as the Red Bull group, with the German of Leipzig and Austrian Salzburg, among others, has done in an extraordinary way. All this brings back to the spoken ambition of Gordon to strengthen Liverpool.

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And what are the disadvantages?

It is not always sweetness and light, since Chelsea’s owners of Blueco are discovering while owning the French club Strasbourg, where restless supporters have clarified their sorrow. Things have improved this season, however, with their victory against Lyon on Friday bringing them to fifth place in Ligue 1, the best division of club football in France.

In recent years, there have also been Lyon protests against John Textor’s Eagle football group, as well as Lorient, where the Black Knight Football Entertainment of the owner of Bournemouth Bill Foley has a participation.

Others also encountered problems when two clubs of the same group ended up together in a European competition.

Strasbourg fans protest against Blueco, the consortium owner of their club and Chelsea (Sebastien Bozon/Afp via Getty Images)

UEFA, European football government, prohibits club partner clubs in front of the other and that the sentence raised problems in view of last season after Brighton & Hove Albion and the Belgium Royale Union Saint-Gilloise both qualified both for the Europa League. In the end Brighton was able to present after UEFA was persuaded that their owner Tony Bloom did not have a decisive influence in the Union.

The Aston Villa had the same problem as their Portuguese club club, Vitoria Guimaraes, joined them in the Europe Conference League last season. The owners of Villa, Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens, were finally forced to reduce their participation in Vitoria to conform.

Liverpool, by extension, also saw the problems encountered by Milan and Toulouse. Redbird Capital Partners, which has an 11 % participation in FSG, has control of those clubs and has been able to convince UEFA that both should be able to play in its competitions.

Included in the conditions of Uefa on all these cases it was that no partner club could transfer players from one to the other to last summer window.

FSG wants the same model used by rivals such as City Football Group and Blueco?

The premise will be the same: to form beneficial partnerships and obtain the competitive advantages they bring. The replica of the CFG model, however, would require huge resources and time.

CFG has been for over a decadePlanting roots in North America, South America, Australia, Asia and Europe. Its influence spreads far and wide.

Although this approach is imitated, nobody has shown the will to replicate its amplitude and FSG, it is not expected that a conscious organization of its financial limits is expected to try.

Blueco, who purchased Chelsea in 2022, undertaken his multi-club mission in the summer of 2023 when it is expected that Strasburg and others join the stable.

FSG has yet to indicate how ambitious its plans will be for a multi-club model, but Edwards believes that the expansion is a must and perhaps Malaga could be the beginning.

(Photo above: owner of Liverpool John W. Henry and his wife Linda Puzzuti; Paul Ellis / Afp via Getty Images)