Inspired by the success of Red Bull and City Football Group, Fenway Sports Group have been exploring the multi-club system at Liverpool for several years.
Indeed, the reason that former sporting director Michael Edwards returned to the club – or, rather, to a more senior role as CEO of football at FSG last year was because of the draw of the multi-club masterplan.
Increasingly, the biggest brains in football are inspired by the idea of creating football’s equivalent of a multinational company, with outposts in lucrative commercial markets and player talent hotspots.
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Liverpool held talks with historic French side Bordeaux in the summer, but those talks collapsed. Since then, they have turned their attention to the Spanish market.
Liverpool owner John Henry celebrates Premier League title at Anfield
Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images
With the help of a long list of appropriate targets compiled by RedBird Capital, who own AC Milan and are among the biggest minority shareholders in FSG, FSG have since narrowed their search.
Liverpool representatives are known to have held discussions – either directly or through deal brokers – with Malaga, Levante, Elche, Espanyol, Getafe and Valladolid.
Espanyol is off the table. Burnley owners ALK Capital added them to their own multi-club network last month. Similarly, Malaga appear to be nearing a procedurally complicated takeover by Paris Saint-Germain owners Qatar Sports Investments.
And as an aside while we’re on the topic of multi-club models, there is an indirect ownership link between Liverpool and PSG through the private equity firm Arctos, who own about five per cent of FSG and 12 per cent of the French giants.
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Of the remaining clubs on Liverpool’s shortlist, Getafe appears to be the one in whom FSG are most interested.
🧵 The Crystal Palace sage is the tip of the iceberg. By my count, 16 Premier League clubs are part of some sort of multi-club network
Spurs, Wolves, Burnley, Fulham – if you don't see your club's name, your team has ties to another somewhere else in the world
Here are all 16🔽
— Adam Williams (@Adam___Williams) June 12, 2025
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The Boston-headquartered regime have dispatched executives to tour the club’s facilities in the summer and, as recently as September, they were said to be in ‘advanced talks’ with owner Angel Torres.
However, it appears that, like with Malaga, another Qatari group has stolen a march on FSG.
As reported by Spanish publication Marca, Qatari holding company JTA is nearing a full agreement with Torres to buy Getafe.
The deal – likely to cost £100m-plus – will see Torres, who is an outspoken and unpredictable character, retain control of the club day-to-day, which appeared to have been a sticking point in talks with FSG.
Why do Liverpool want to launch a multi-club network?
Jurgen Klopp has been skewered for accepting his role as president of global football with Red Bull because of his historic criticism about the multi-club model.
But whatever we think about the ethics of this kind of system, there is no denying that the Red Bull model has been riotously successful. Its clubs are sustainable financially, routinely champions in their respective leagues, and they are a production line for the best young talent in world football.
Liverpool want a piece of that, with a two-way system of player trading that would allow players scouted in Spain to transfer to the mothership on Merseyside after reaching the required level. Players would move in the other direction too, either to gain experience or move costs around the group for compliance purposes. Similarly, the two clubs would likely share resources, intelligence, data and personnel.
La Liga match ball on podium bearing the Getafe badge
Photo By Oscar J. Barroso/Europa Press via Getty Images
However, it is understood that FSG’s ambitions in the multi-club space are commercial as much as they are about performance and sport.
Like Manchester City’s City Football Group, it appears that Liverpool’s owners want to cultivate a wider multi-club brand which has outposts across the world. That in turn might create opportunities for shared sponsorship deals, merchandise ranges and so on.
And with more skin in the game, owning two clubs would also give FSG more influence on matters of governance at European level – in discussions around UEFA’s equivalent of PSR, for example.