FSG Expected to Hand Over Full Liverpool Ownership to Bhatia's 1892 Holdings as Moore Dismisses 'Silly' Bezos Framing

Former Liverpool chief executive Peter Moore says he expects Fenway Sports Group to hand over full ownership of Liverpool to the 1892 Holdings consortium, telling the Liverpool Echo that Amit Bhatia — not Jeff Bezos — is the man being positioned to become the club's ultimate owner. The assessment lands six weeks after FSG agreed to sell a 38 per cent stake in the club to the Bhatia-led consortium in a deal reportedly valued at close to £2 billion, with an option for the investors to purchase a controlling stake within 12 months.

What Moore actually said

Moore, who ran Liverpool between 2017 and 2020 during the most successful stretch of the FSG era, dismissed as "silly" the framing of the deal around Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who sits in the consortium alongside Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and the Mittal family. His reading of the structure is that the 38 per cent stake is a staging post: FSG are paving the way for a full handover, with Bhatia — a former QPR chairman married into the Mittal family — as the operating owner once regulatory approval clears him to become vice-chairman.

It's really Amit Bhatia, and as you may have seen, he is married to the daughter of Mittal, which is where the real money is. To his credit, Amit has been at Queens Park Rangers for 16 years.— Peter Moore, former Liverpool chief executive, to the Liverpool Echo, September 2026

The structure on the table

The confirmed facts of the deal, announced by FSG on 14 August, are a 38 per cent equity sale to 1892 Holdings — the vehicle led and managed by Bhatia, with Bezos represented by managing partner Bryan Baum and holding no board seat — valuing the investment at around £2 billion according to the Liverpool Echo's reporting. The option to acquire a controlling stake inside 12 months is the governance story inside the story: exercise it, and Liverpool moves from the John W. Henry stable to a consortium whose centre of gravity is London, Mumbai and the tech fortunes orbiting it.

The Premier League's owners' and directors' test, tightened after the 2023-24 rule changes, still has to bless Bhatia's move to the boardroom — the same regulatory gate that has kept the vice-chairmanship in a holding pattern since August. FSG retain majority ownership and operational control until then, and no timetable has been published for the option decision.

Why it matters beyond Anfield

For governance watchers, the Liverpool arrangement is the cleanest test yet of the league's new rules on staged control transfers: a minority investor with a contractual path to control, fronted by a familiar football operator rather than a sovereign or private-equity fund. Bhatia's 18 years at QPR — he resigned as a director in July 2026 — give the consortium the football résumé that other recent entrants lacked, while the presence of Bezos and Saverin means the Premier League's wealthiest ownership group could get materially wealthier without a single new share being issued.

Nothing in Moore's comments confirms that the option will be exercised, and FSG have said nothing publicly beyond the August statement. But the direction of travel described by a man who sat inside the ownership is the clearest signal yet that Liverpool's next ownership era has a date on the horizon — and a name on the door.

Reported by Ines Kovač from reporting by the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool.com, with deal terms as announced by Fenway Sports Group on 14 August 2026. Claims are as reported and unconfirmed by FSG or 1892 Holdings. Cover image: Anfield stadium, home of Liverpool FC, via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons licence.