Liverpool supporters are to launch an ambitious plan to buy the football club from its American owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks. The 'Share Liverpool FC' Group will present a plan to organise the buy-out by 100,000 fans.

The 'Share Liverpool FC' Group hopes to raise £500 million, from the 100,000 fans each paying £5,000 for one share in the club in a 'Barcelona FC-style' member share scheme to purchase the club and build a new stadium.

The group will launch a website to attract interest from Liverpool's worldwide supporter base, particularly in East Asia.

Those behind the proposed fans' buy-out, are football business lecturer and Liverpool fan Rogan Taylor, former director of communications at the Premier League Phil French and Kevin Jacquiss a lawyer and expert in launching co-operatives.

Taylor 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 15yrs by clubs owned and run in such a way".