Liverpool: Liverpool to announce loss

Liverpool will announce a record loss of 21.9million at their annual general meeting next month.

And the report to shareholders shows that it cost over 10million to pay off former manager Gerard Houllier and his staff of Phil Thompson, Joe Corrigan and Christian Damiano and players who were deemed surplus to requirements.

These figures underline why they decided to sell Michael Owen earlier in the season rather than allow his transfer value to shrink to nothing if he worked out his contract and left on a free transfer.

The club lost 14million because of their failure to reach the Champions League last season but the club insist that much of this has been made up by qualification for the current campaign.

The good news for Liverpool is that they have managed to reduce their overall debt by 3.5million, from 18.9million to 15.4million.

Sportinglife