LIVERPOOL SUPPORTERS have begun an email campaign to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) warning of a product boycott if the British taxpayer-owned bank provides a long-term extension to the club’s €260 million loans.

The bank confirmed there had been correspondence from fans but declined to expand on its nature. The business wire service Bloomberg reported the bank’s chief executive has received hundreds of messages, each with a different 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 an opinion about the messages, the banking sector has always had concerns about the effect on retail operations of a fan backlash if institutions’ lending arms make life difficult for clubs. That did not appear to be the case, however, as fans were quiescent when Barclays closed off Southampton’s overdraft and effectively pushed 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 Hicks and 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.

Guardian Service