Owed £325 Million, Royal Bank Of Scotland Could Take-Over Liverpool After October 6

According to reports out of England, the Royal Bank of Scotland, who is owed £325 million by Liverpool Football Club’s parent company, could take over the team come October 6.

With Kop Football Holdings unable to meet its loan obligations to the Scottish bank, RBS could elect to have its corporate restructuring team manage the club rather than put the club into administration, which would negatively impact the club’s potential sale due to an automatically imposed nine-point Premier League penalty.

Should Liverpool be unable to secure a buyer before October 6, when Kop Holdings’ loan come due, RBS is likely to take over the club:

One option open to RBS would be to put the club’s parent company, Kop Football (Holdings), into administration, but that is not favoured since it would almost inevitably lead to a nine-point deduction under Premier League insolvency rules. Instead, the Observer has learned, unless one of the parties involved in negotiations to take over at Anfield follows through with a formal offer, RBS’s corporate-restructuring team would assume control of Liverpool and run the club as a wholly owned subsidiary.As the report notes, because near 85 percent of the Royal Bank of Scotland is owned by UK Financial Investments Ltd - a company set-up by the British government to manage national investment in banks - Liverpool could effectively become a property of the United Kingdom.

Liverpool remains confident a sale will happen before RBS administration is necessary, with club secretary Ian Sylvester anticipating a deal will get done:

”From what I understand, and that’s all I can say, the urgency is there due to the pressure from the banks, so I would anticipate that something will be happening within the next four to six weeks or so.“There are four entities reported to be bidding for Liverpool: a group led by Chinese businessman Kenny Huang; Syrian Yahya Kirdi; U.S.-based equity firm the Rhone Group; and an Indian conglomerate, Sahara.