(Reuters) – Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan, cousin of Manchester City owner and Arab billionaire Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, failed in a 2 billion pounds ($2.55 billion) proposal to buy UK’s Liverpool Football Club, the Daily Mail reported late on Thursday.
The Emirati member of the family governing Abu Dhabi held talks with representatives of Liverpool’s owners from late last year to early this year, the report https://dailym.ai/2MS3cOU said, citing documents.
Midhat Kidwai, managing director of Sheikh Khaled’s Bin Zayed International, met Liverpool chairman Tom Werner in New York, according to the report.
The buyout would have been a joint venture between Sheikh Khaled and a Chinese minority stake partner, the Daily Mail reported.
A Liverpool statement cited by the newspaper said the club’s American owners, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), have not put the club for sale but are considering a minority investment.
“FSG have been clear and consistent: the club is not for sale. But what the ownership has said, again clearly and consistently, is that under the right terms and conditions we would consider taking on a minority investor”, the club told the newspaper. FSG, Liverpool and Bin Zayed International did not respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.
Liverpool, which finished fourth last season in the league, has won the English league title 18 times but the last of those triumphs was in 1990 before the Premier League was set up.