It has now gone a year since the takeover at Liverpool by Fenway Sports group. The club’s previous owners, Hicks and Gillett, were struggling with a massive mountain of debt at Anfield.
“Certainly the bank had the power to call in the debt and at the time there wasn’t anyone ready to take on that debt. So I guess the answer to that is yes, the club could have gone into administration,” Ayre confessed.
“Based on where we were and based on the circumstances at the time that was a very real threat. It’s not what anyone wanted. It wouldn’t have been a better solution than where we ended up but it was a very real threat.
“That was the case in the final hours. That was one of the other routes we could have gone down.”
“There are lessons to be learnt for all football clubs, because we really were on the edge,” Ayre revealed.
“What you had was a domino effect of things. Debt was going up and the cost of servicing the debt was beyond what we felt was reasonable.
“Obviously we had a very negative reaction from the fan base which was starting to hurt the commercial revenue. The debt servicing became even harder because the revenues became smaller. If you can’t invest in the team, as we’ve seen the fall out is no European football etc.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really wanted to dare to dream where we would have got to but it didn’t look good and that was reason why Martin, Christian and myself and the others involved felt we had to find the right solution. There was no preconceived idea of who that was, just the right solution to solve all those problems.”
“It was a disaster that we have recovered from. We are now where we should be and heading in a better direction and in a better shape and set up as a business to perform and deliver,” he added.
“If you really think where we were 12 months ago, it couldn’t be more different. We’ve managed to get it back that quickly, when it could have had a lot more lasting damage – where we are today, I don’t think we could even hoped to be this far ahead 12 months ago.”
