Liverpool CEO Peter Moore has defended the club’s decision to trademark the word ‘Liverpool’.
Anfield chiefs met opposition last week in their attempts to trade mark the word, which they insist is ‘only in the context of football products and services’.
Local independent traders and community-based football clubs such as City of Liverpool FC (COLFC) have voiced their concerns at the Reds’ current application.
It also emerged that Liverpool had sought to copyright the chorus of popular fans’ chant ‘Allez Allez Allez’ in November but subsequently withdrew it.
Mr Moore attempted to allay concerns about the club’s position on Twitter following a meeting with a number of parties, including COLFC, on Friday.
He said: “I met with City of Liverpool FC to discuss the club’s application to register ‘Liverpool’ in a football context for goods and services.
“We are trying to protect LFC against large-scale counterfeiting operations and are not in any way targeting small businesses and clubs.
“The context of this application is very important.
“The club is NOT and would never seek a monopoly over the word ‘Liverpool’ across the board. We understand the roots of this great city and the importance of amateur football clubs.
“We had positive discussions with City of Liverpool FC and will now develop a legally-binding agreement with LFC that allows them to continue their great work.
“We are under attack from large scale manufacturing. We must protect the global revenues to reinvest in players and infrastructure.
“Other community football clubs that use the word Liverpool do not have anything to worry about. I have made these reassurances and repeated today.
“We also met with local independent retailers. We had a positive and constructive meeting.
“We reiterated the context of our application, which is not about local traders, it is about large-scale operations that are flooding the market.
“We are under attack from large scale manufacturing and want to protect the global revenues to reinvest in players and infrastructure.
“We’ve agreed to continue discussions with a view to find solutions to concerns raised.
“We have previously t’marked ‘Six Times’ to protect ourselves and fans from counterfeits.
“We applied to trademark ‘Allez Allez Allez’ after a trader attempted to register it;to protect ourselves and fans we did likewise.”