A Liverpool fans' group aim to achieve what Dubai International Capital have failed to manage - buy the club from their American owners.
Co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have, for the moment, seen off DIC in the battle for control at Anfield.
They have completed a £350million re-financing deal with UK and American banks, with the club now being saddled with £30million interest repayments per year.
That will wipe out their operating costs, although boss Rafael Benitez has been assured it will not disrupt his summer spending.
That said, qualification for the Champions League is now a must every season, or Liverpool will face serious financial problems.
However, fans and critics are sceptical of the deal brokered by the Americans, with the new 'Share Liverpool FC' group today revealing plans to former a supporters' co-operative to buy the club.
More plans will be revealed at a media conference but the idea is to produce a Barcelona-style members-share scheme to raise £500million to buy the club and build the new stadium in Stanley Park.
Behind the scheme is Rogan Taylor, a Kop season ticket holder and long-term fan, who said: ‘The time is right to offer a different solution to the rising concerns that football fans have about the patterns of ownership developing at our major football clubs.
‘Thousands of Liverpool fans have already demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.
‘Large amounts of debt often devolves onto clubs newly purchased, but the fans know that, in the end, it will be they themselves who will have to pay it off through increased ticket prices and other schemes. In such a case, why not simply buy the club yourselves?
‘What many don't realise is that there are other ways of financing and taking ownership of big clubs. In Germany and Spain, most top level football clubs are simply not for sale.
‘They are owned by many thousands of 'member fans'. The Champions League has been won on six occasions in the last 15 years by clubs owned and run in such a way.’
Taylor, a Liverpool fan for over 40 years, is a founder member and chairman of the Football Supporters' Association, launched in Liverpool after the Heysel disaster.
Currently the Director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool, Taylor is also a writer and broadcaster.
Rogan is currently the Director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool, and a well-known writer and broadcaster.
Also on board is Phil French, a former director of communications of the Premier League and now chief executive of Supporters Direct, the government-backed organisation that helps fans get real stakes in their clubs.
Equally involved is Kevin Jaquiss, of the law firm Cobbetts. He was part of the group which developed the Supporters' Trust concept and wrote the model constitution which is now used by over 100 Fans' Trusts in England, Wales and Scotland.
