Football - Liverpool FC: LIVERPOOL co-owner Tom Hicks claims there is a large number of “interested buyers” in the club he and George Gillett put up for sale last month.

Having leveraged huge debt on the club – parent company Kop Holdings’ were £351million in the red last summer with annual loan repayments of £40m – the Americans decided to end their tumultuous reign at Anfield.

Liverpool are up for sale with an asking price of between £600m to £800m. Those figures have hardly had investors knocking down the door of chairman Martin Broughton, who was appointed to oversee the process.

However, Hicks, who yesterday suggested it could take between 12 and 18 months to sell the club, still believes there are plenty of candidates to take over.

“Liverpool has a really big universe of interested buyers,” said the Texan. “There are a number of wealthy people all over the world, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, who are enormous Liverpool fans.”

The 64-year-old admits he has had enough of owning clubs and sports franchises and is trying now to sell all his interests.

His Texas Rangers baseball side filed for bankruptcy on Monday some 13 months after its parent, HSG Sports Group, defaulted on £360m of debt. The Dallas Stars ice hockey franchise is also being sold. Liverpool will be the last of his three main sports investments to be offloaded.

“Sports has never been my primary business,” Hicks said.

“We are systematically selling our sports assets to focus on our core businesses like private equity and real estate.”