Liverpool supporters have begun a coordinated email campaign to the Royal Bank of Scotland warning of a product boycott if the taxpayer-owned bank provides a long-term extension to the club's £237m loans.
The bank confirmed there had been correspondence from fans but declined to expand on its nature. The business wire service Bloomberg reported that the bank's chief executive, Stephen Hester, has received hundreds of messages, each with a different individual's signature.
"It is my understanding that, if the refinancing deal is renegotiated beyond July 2010, then a campaign in protest against the Royal Bank of Scotland will take place which will include billboards with anti-RBS messages encouraging Liverpool fans to boycott RBS," the emails say. "As a British tax payer and a lifelong Liverpool fan, I can assure you that I am not happy that my hard-earned money is being used to pay for the purchase of Liverpool Football Club for George Gillett and Tom Hicks."
Although RBS did not express any opinion about the messages, the banking sector has always had concerns about the effect on retail operations of a fan backlash if institutions' corporate lending arms make life difficult for clubs. That did not appear to be the case, however, as fans were quiescent when Barclays made a stand over the stricken former Southampton owner, Southampton Leisure Holdings, closing off the club's overdraft and effectively pushing it into administration.
Paradoxically this time the pressure from Liverpool fans is for banks specifically to cause financial problems for the club. The campaign is an attempt to starve the club's American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, of credit and, if the bank refuses to roll over the club's borrowings, it could precipitate a financial crisis at Anfield.
Few lenders are willing to offer new facilities in the current climate and Hicks and Gillett have so far shown no great enthusiasm for injecting their own equity.
Hicks last year suffered the indignity of defaulting on the $525m (£345m) debt in his Hicks Sports Group holding company, leading to the sale of the Texas Rangers franchise and much of its surrounding real estate to an investment group including the club's president, the former pitcher Nolan Ryan, in January.
Despite that successful transaction – reportedly worth £310m – Hicks's personal wealth is estimated to have slipped in the past 12 months. Forbes calculated in its most recent rich list that Hicks had lost his billionaire status over the course of the year, now being worth $950m. Liverpool are currently exploring the market's appetite for a £100m third-party investment.
