Talking about success on the pitch, and they were fantastic moments for us all as Liverpool fans, there also seems this renewed sense of ambition off the pitch too…
Yeah, we’ve been very, very public about the fact that we’re always working to run the club sustainably. And that ultimately means that we are focused on on-pitch success, and then we hopefully can drive off-pitch success to help to fund that, to help to drive the club forward. An amazing team of people that work incredibly hard off the pitch to make sure that we’re doing everything possible to support our on-pitch ambitions. Ultimately that’s to win trophies and to compete consistently. From a partnership standpoint, which is a big part, we mentioned Standard Chartered and Carlsberg and Expedia, AXA – some of our big partners on the principal side. We’ve had 10 new partners that have joined the club in the last 18 months alone, so incredibly important work going on there.
From a merchandising standpoint, we were celebrating when we were out in Hong Kong for pre-season, we opened our 20th standalone retail store. And actually since our visit to Hong Kong, we’ve opened 21 and 22, so we’ve now got 22 standalone LFC retail stores around the world, more retail outlets than any other team in world sport, which is something that we’re incredibly proud of and we continue to drive that forward.
We’ve talked about the expansion of Anfield, and one of the things that we’ve obviously been doing more recently is concerts at Anfield and trying to utilise Anfield for more than just the matchday. That is an opportunity for us also to potentially bring new people to Anfield and new people to Liverpool. We all are familiar with the Swifties who came in a couple of summers ago, but all the fans of P!nk and Bruce Springsteen and Dua Lipa, those are opportunities for us to have people come to Anfield that maybe wouldn’t come for a football match, but also the chance for them to come to Liverpool and to see the city and to reinforce what’s great about the community and Merseyside in general.
And then obviously the digital side of what we do. We’re the most-watched team in the Premier League, over 200 million followers across our social media platforms, 1.7 billion engagements, the most-engaged team in the Premier League last season. So, we want to continue to drive all of these elements forward. There’s still a tremendous amount of work ahead of us, but really proud of the team sort of behind the team, the team off the field that’s doing all this work to help drive the club forward in a major way.
A tricky one this, but what would your highlight be amongst all the stuff that you’ve talked about already? One that you would pick out, what would it be to go back to and why?
I mean, it’s incredibly difficult to pick just one. There’s been so many. As I said earlier, the reason we do this is to be successful, to win trophies. Winning two trophies in the WSL, winning two Premier League trophies, the Champions League, Super Cup, Club World Cup, those moments when you get the chance to lift a trophy are moments that you never forget and the people that you’ve worked so hard with, and for in the sense of our ownership, but the team that we work with every day on and off the pitch, those are the moments that everything comes together.
I will say and we talked about it earlier, not just because it’s the most recent, but the title last year and the opportunity to celebrate that together, the opportunity to lift a trophy at Anfield, which is something that we didn’t get the chance to do, that’s probably the highlight. The transition that we talked about in terms of football leadership, all the work and blood, sweat and tears of the last 15 years coming to fruition with the title is certainly a moment I’ll never forget and right up there with the best of them.
You’ve so articulately described the highest of highs, but we’ve had the lowest of lows as a club as well. How do you feel as a club we’ve been able to get through those moments together?
Yeah, certainly even just this past summer and even these last few weeks, most recently, Matt Beard, who was the former manager of the women’s team and had two stints here at the club and, I mentioned earlier, won two WSL trophies and helped us get promoted back to the WSL in his most recent time at the club, we lost Matt just a couple of weeks ago. And of course, Diogo and Andre and their passing this summer, which rocked everybody, not just here at the club but across the world of sport and even frankly beyond that.
Maybe a term that gets used a lot and maybe sounds trite, but there really is a sense of family at this club and it’s something that I’ve certainly felt in my time here and I think in those moments, certainly the highs are incredible but I think in the lows that family comes together. I think we saw that in abundance this summer, unfortunately, in the aftermath of Diogo and Andre’s passing. When we have had lows, and you’re right, there have been lows, that’s when that family comes together, supports each other and supports those impacted by it. Those are really, really difficult moments, but I think it’s also just a reflection of the values of the club and the way that people come together, both inside and outside of the club, supporters and those that are impacted by the club, to come together to get through those moments.
