Now Reading: Jeff Bezos in consortium to buy minority stake in Liverpool FC
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Jeff Bezos in consortium to buy minority stake in Liverpool FC
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is part of a billionaire consortium nearing a deal to acquire more than a 30% minority stake in Liverpool FC from Fenway Sports Group, according to Sky News.…
The Story in Brief
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is part of a billionaire consortium nearing a deal to acquire more than a 30% minority stake in Liverpool FC from Fenway Sports Group, according to Sky News. The group includes Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and is led by Amit Bhatia, son-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal. The investment could value Liverpool at around $6 billion, a dramatic rise from the £300 million FSG paid in 2010.
FSG would remain the controlling shareholder. An announcement could come this week or next, the sources say. Bezos, with a net worth of over $280 billion per Forbes, would expand his sports portfolio. The deal underscores wealthy investors' growing interest in Premier League clubs.
The Indian Opinion
A billionaire dropping crores on a minority stake in Liverpool is yet another chapter of football becoming a plaything for the ultra-rich. The predictable narrative is to celebrate this as a sign of the league's global clout. But for the ordinary Indian fan watching on a phone screen, the real story is the widening gap: clubs with oligarch and sovereign-wealth owners pull away from the rest. A fairer test would be how much of the $6 billion valuation trickles down to affordable tickets or grassroots development in places like Mumbai or Kolkata.
Sources (2): economictimes.indiatimes.com, sports.ndtv.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
