United a ‘bigger potential’ as investment than Liverpool, says expert

Amidst talk of rivals

and Liverpool being up for sale, financial expert Kieran Maguire believes that United has a better potential as an investment while Liverpool has already reached its peak potential financially speaking.

While the Glazers have taken over the club since 2005, FSG has owned Liverpool since 2010 and in the time since then have raised Liverpool’s asset value tenfold.

Kieran Maguire, who is a football finance expert, recently talked to Stats Perform and broke down the two clubs’ potential sales.

"I think Manchester United is a bigger ship to turn round," Maguire said. "It's going to be more expensive, but it probably does have the bigger potential in terms of profitability.

"Liverpool is slightly more oven ready in the sense that the expansion at Anfield has taken place, and FSG [Fenway Sports Group] has invested significantly as far as [the training complex] is concerned.

"I think Manchester United will be more expensive because it generates higher revenue, it's got a bigger stadium, it's got a bigger fan base, is going to be more expensive to turn round. If you get that right, you could make a very significant return on your investment.

"Liverpool, I think is more of a challenge. Because there's an argument for saying that Liverpool are already at a peak, and where can they go further? In terms of being a global brand that is certainly in the top 10 of the world, there's no doubt about that. But I think FSG have done a very good job to date, and that's baked into the price."

While

is currently valued at £3.68bn Manchester United sits a bit higher with a value of £3.8bn. Maguire believes that only buyers from USA or the Middle East can afford to pay that sum with Indian billionaires as outside chances to get the deal done.

"I think we're in an interesting position at present trying to work out where the demand for investment is going to come from,"

he added.

"China is definitely out of the market. That's very much become a diktat from the Chinese government, it doesn't feel comfortable with conspicuous consumption, the development of the Chinese game has not accelerated to the degree that they'd hoped. So I think that they're leaving football aside.

"Private equity is very keen on football, we've seen what's happened in Milan. We've seen Chelsea and therefore I think we've got a new potential tranche of owners.

"And you couple that with heightened Middle Eastern interest. I think the comments from one of the Saudi senior people [Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki al-Faisal] that they would not object to having Liverpool, Manchester United and Newcastle owned by citizens from the country.

"And I've been talking to Forbes in India earlier this morning and they seem to think that an Indian acquisition could not be ruled out, given the size of the country."

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