Almost £60 million has been pledged by fans to Share Liverpool FC's planned buyout of American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The Liverpool Echo says a total of 11,892 fans have indicated they will buy shares in the club on Share Liverpool FC's website - the group which has outlined proposals for 100,000 fans to buy the club by purchasing a single £5,000 share each.

This amounts to £59.46m towards the £500m total needed for the proposed buy-out.

The first statistics show just under 50,000 people visited the site from 149 countries, between February 1 and 4.

Organisers say the website crashed within minutes of opening last Thursday, due to the sheer weight of numbers trying to reach the site, and re-opened the next afternoon.

Analysis by Google reveals that during the weekend the site received 11,892 "count me in" responses, 5,394 responses praising the idea but saying they want more information, and 7,930 responders saying they could not afford the step.

The four biggest countries of origin were the UK, with 25,177 hits, Norway, with 6,138, the USA with 3,071 and Ireland with 2,053.

Only 128 fans ticked the "you've got no chance" option on the site.