Standard Chartered deal lets Liverpool put their shirt on world domination

Liverpool's managing director says £80m from a record shirt sponsorship will go to the club not the owners.

The £80m raised by Liverpool's biggest commercial deal will be reinvested in the club, according to the new managing director, Christian Purslow. In his first interview since succeeding Rick Parry, Purslow said the four-year shirt sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered Bank would be the first step towards transforming Liverpool into "the biggest football team in the world".

Asked whether Standard Chartered's £20m a year would stay on Merseyside or go to Dallas and Montreal to fund the club's owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Purslow said: "The fans will be relieved to know that Liverpool's revenues, profits and income belong to the club. I can assure you that as we drive forward our turnover, we will invest a sensible amount of that in our wage bill and our transfers. None of that money will go anywhere other than into the development of the club."

Purslow, who was brought in by Hicks after Parry was forced from office in the summer, knows there is much still to do. He made one pointed remark towards the club's old regime, whose shirt deal with Carlsberg was, at 17 years, the longest running in the Premier League but which, at £7.2m a year, was not the most lucrative.

"We have to strive to have the most successful commercial agreements in the market place," Purslow said. "We should not be satisfied with having OK agreements, agreements that run a long time but are not as economically advantageous as they could be. That is why we set ourselves a goal in terms of this key aspect – shirt sponsorship.

"I hate words like 'brand'. I don't want Liverpool to be the biggest brand in the world, I want to make it the best team in the world. But there has been a pretty clear link to being the best team and having the best performance off the field. That has not been our position, historically, but there is no reason why we cannot be the biggest, the best run and the most commercially successful football club in the world. But I stress we will pick our partners carefully and do deals consistent with our history and our soul."

The contract with Standard Chartered equals Manchester United's four-year £80m tie-in with Aon, who will replace AIG in 2010, as the game's most lucrative shirt deal. The £100m Arsenal received from Emirates in 2004 for a 15-year deal suddenly does not seem such good value.

In June, however, Liverpool announced a record turnover, of £159m, which was still £97m behind Manchester United. Arsenal and Chelsea have also broken the £200m mark. Anfield has 32 private boxes – Old Trafford can seat 9,000 corporate clients. That imbalance will not change without a new stadium, but Liverpool's Stanley Park project has been mothballed by the credit crunch and, according to Hicks, it will not begin again until financial markets improve. Even if the new stadium is finished in time for the 2018 World Cup, it will be six years late on original plans.

Purslow is optimistic that Liverpool can compete while playing at Anfield.

"Our year-end results have just been completed and profits [£44m before tax] were up substantially and substantially ahead of budgeted profits, so even without a new stadium Liverpool is growing and growing fast. But there is no doubt about it, when we have a new stadium it will be the single biggest quantum leap forward in revenue that I can see ahead of me. When we can secure sensible and affordable funding that doesn't burden the club unnecessarily, then we'll do the stadium."