{"id":630418,"date":"2026-08-10T16:24:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/630418\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T16:24:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:24:38","slug":"liverpool-owners-close-to-e1-58bn-sale-of-30-stake-to-consortium-including-jeff-bezos-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/630418\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool owners close to \u20ac1.58bn sale of 30% stake to consortium including Jeff Bezos \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A consortium including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos<\/a> is close to completing a deal for a 30 per cent stake in Liverpool<\/a> after months of talks with Fenway Sports Group.<\/p>\n

The investors are led by Amit Bhatia, the son-in-law of Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, who previously was a shareholder at Queens Park Rangers. Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin is another member of the group who are set to pay in the region of \u00a31.35 billion (\u20ac1.58 billion) for almost a third of the Premier League club. It is understood the deal is effectively agreed but may take up to a month to complete.<\/p>\n

Bezos has a personal fortune of around $257 billion (\u20ac223 billion), according to Forbes, making him the fourth-richest person in the world, while Saverin is reportedly worth $32 billion (\u20ac28 billion). This will be Bezos\u2019 first investment in football but he has previously looked into bidding for NFL franchises. The 62-year-old will receive equity as part of the deal, which it is understood Deloitte has advised on.<\/p>\n

Bezos is the executive chair of Amazon having relinquished day-to-day control when he stepped down as chief executive five years ago. Under his leadership the online retailer has looked to diversify as an entertainment provider in recent years and has bought numerous sports rights for its streaming service.<\/p>\n

Amazon had live UK rights for 20 Premier League<\/a> games each season for six seasons until the end of last year, and broadcasts the Champions League<\/a> in several European countries, as well as NFL in the US.<\/p>\n

FSG bought the Merseyside club in 2010 and have overseen an era which has included two Premier League titles. FSG previously sold 3 per cent of the club to the US private equity firm Dynasty Equity in 2023.<\/p>\n

It has been a summer of change at Anfield, with Andoni Iraola replacing Arne Slot as head coach, while Mohamed Salah left on a free transfer and has since joined Trabzonspor. Meanwhile, Michael Edwards departed his role as chief executive officer at FSG. <\/p>\n

FSG has been approached for comment. <\/p>\n

\"Liverpool'sLiverpool’s Virgil van Dijk during the pre-season friendly match against Monaco at Anfield on Sunday. Photograph: Naomi Baker\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether the deal will impact Liverpool\u2019s summer transfer plans, but for the moment captain Virgil van Dijk says he is ready to welcome Ronald Ara\u00fajo as his new centre-back partner, with the deal to sign the Barcelona defender almost complete.<\/p>\n

Van Dijk played almost an hour, his first pre-season appearance, as Liverpool were beaten 3-2 by Monaco at Anfield, having led 2-0. The Dutchman fouled Aleksandr Golovin to concede a penalty just before the break, which Golovin scored.<\/p>\n

J\u00e9r\u00e9my Jacquet remained absent, with Liverpool\u2019s new \u00a350m arrival being treated with kid gloves after an injury-hit spell at the end of last season with Rennes. Ara\u00fajo has been signed to bolster Andoni Iraola\u2019s defensive options, with Joe Gomez and Giovanni Leoni also sidelined.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny player that arrives at the club we will be welcoming,\u201d Van Dijk said of Ara\u00fajo. \u201cI have no idea if it has been announced or not. I have not seen him so let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Dijk was upbeat about Jacquet and the prospect of more transfer activity between now and the transfer deadline on September 1st. Liverpool are keen on adding to their forward line with Paris Saint-Germain\u2019s Bradley Barcola of interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see what the next couple of weeks are going to bring. Any quality we can add to the team will definitely be welcome so let\u2019s see.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve not seen any of him. I\u2019ve spoken to him,\u201d Van Dijk said of Jacquet. \u201cI\u2019ve seen him walking around and we have conversations. I can\u2019t wait to see him back on the pitch and I hope that happens very soon. I\u2019m not a doctor, so I don\u2019t know exactly the situation, but I have a feeling this week he could be back on the pitch, hopefully as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Van Dijk accepted Liverpool are in a transition period after the sacking of Arne Slot, he revealed he has been in regular contact with Iraola and offered his full support to the new head coach.<\/p>\n

Van Dijk said: \u201cWe had a great conversation in the first week when it got announced and the main thing for him to know is I am here for him regardless, anything he needs, wants to know, wants me to do for the team or whatever. Hopefully we will be successful this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing to take away from Arne and his staff, we had an amazing time together, but obviously last year [was] a disappointment. This year we have a new manager who has new ways of preparation, so we have to adapt to the new staff, different training methods. I liked working under Arne and I am sure I will like working under the new manager.\u201d \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A consortium including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is close to completing a deal for a 30 per cent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,9791,560,132],"class_list":["post-630418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117072146148249616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}