Ayre optimistic about Liverpool future

Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre is adamant the club has a bright financial future despite posting a 20m pound loss last year.

The club’s published accounts for July 2009 to June were the makings of previous owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, widely despised by the Anfield faithful.

The report showed that rising revenues were undermined by an increase in debt, but Fenway Sports Group, who took over the club for 300m pounds in October, have injected 200m pounds of debt repayments into the club so far.

And Ayres is confident the club is now in good hands.

“As much as we are all aware of the difficult circumstances surrounding these accounts and that period in the Club’s history, everyone in the world can now see just how much has since been achieved,” Ayre told the club’s official website.

“They are accounts for last season and obviously at that time it was a very different period and a different situation for Liverpool Football Club.”

“I think we have all moved on since then. They very much represent a footnote in that era of the Club’s history.”

“It’s an era that was very well documented and published for all sorts of reasons. But we remain very optimistic.”

“Nobody, whether you’re the Managing Director or anybody else connected with the club, wants to see any report ever that talks about the sort of losses that report talks about, but I think we take comfort and optimism in the direction we’ve headed in since that period.”

Ayres said the club had made significant inroads into reducing its 17-million-pound-per-year interest payments, and could afford to reinvest in the squad to aid next season’s title assault.

“We’ve paid down a significant amount of what was acquisition debt from the previous owners and the club finds itself in a much better position as a result of that.”

“The club is now in an excellent position to move forward and all of us can approach the future with optimism.”