IN 1964 Liverpool embarked on a tour of North America. Bill Shankly was an unhappy traveller. Throughout the trip he wore five watches, four set to different US time zones, the other to UK time, which he continued to observe. When Bob Paisley protested about the consequences of Shankly’s antics, such as the manager handing out teamsheets at 3am, Shankly barked: “No Yank is going to tell me what time it is.”

But later Shankly softened. An aficionado of American gangster movies, he loved Chicago and, at Soldier Field stadium, got the groundsman to show him where Jack Dempsey fought Gene Tunney and, with Paisley, had a kickabout there. “He might have had problems with his time zones but he was the great innovator. Bill wouldn’t have been nervous about change,” said Rick Parry, Liverpool’s chief executive, asked what “Shanks” would have made of George Gillett and Tom Hicks. “For Bill, first was first and second was nowhere and provided we were winning things I think he’d have been happy.”

Liverpool are the third club in the Premiership to accept top dollar American owners in the hope of top honours, fourth if you include Everton, in which Robert Earl, the Planet Hollywood mogul, has a quarter stake. David Moores, Liverpool’s outgoing chairman, was so emotional about selling that despite the comfort of receiving £88m for his 51.6% share, he felt unable to attend Tuesday’s takeover press conference. “He was devastated at having to do it, but equally he knew it was right,” Parry said.

A similar dilemma, or the opprobrium that faced Manchester United when it was sold to the Glazer family, could be avoided if English magnates were willing to stake fortunes in English football as are Americans (and Russians and Icelanders). Why not? “I think it’s your fault. The media,” said Hicks. “Being a sports owner is a very serious step for your family, because you lose your privacy. I’m used to it, so I don’t mind doing it one more time. But I think that lack of privacy is something that worries my wealthy friends in England. They just don’t have any interest in losing that.” Gillett agrees: “Some of the wealthiest men in the world live right here and it would be nothing for them to do what we did. Why they didn’t, I don’t know, but I suspect it’s to do with privacy rather than business reasons.”

Other businesses are more lucrative, and many are safer, but few offer the combination of profitability and pleasure involved in owning a sports team. It appeals to the optimist lurking inside many Americans. Football’s balance sheets stir their capitalist instincts. English clubs are still relatively cheap — Hicks’s investment in Liverpool is less than he paid for the ailing Texas Rangers baseball team in 1998. The Premiership’s new £900m-per-season broadcast deal compares favourably to US television contracts. Only the NFL ($3.735 billion per year) earns more. The collective contract for the NBA is worth $767m per year and the MLB $729m although clubs earn significant supplements through individually sold local television rights.

Stan Kroenke, the Denver-based billionaire who owns NFL, NBA and NHL franchises, has just brought his MLS team, Colorado Rapids, into partnership with Arsenal. “There will be more Americans getting involved with English clubs,” said Harry Philp of the sports consultancy Hermes. “If you already own a baseball team and basketball team the next thing you buy is a marquee soccer brand in Europe.”

Gillett likens Liverpool to his purchase of the Montreal Canadiens: “The locals had a chance to buy it but they didn’t see the same thing I did. I don’t think it’s that Americans are out there looking to invest in English football, it’s that we’re sensitive to good opportunities.”

In Merseyside, initial fan concern has already been replaced by acceptance. They joke on message boards about the DSS buying the naming rights to Liverpool’s new stadium to call it “San Giro”. On Friday, Born in the USA blared from a television in the Liverpool FC Museum. In Premiership boardrooms it’s an increasingly popular refrain.

Meet Arsenal’s American friend

- Missouri-born property tycoon Enos Stanley Kroenke is a renowned sports fanatic - perhaps not too surprising considering his parents named him after two basketball players - St Louis Cardinals stars Enos Slaughter and Stan ‘The Man’ Musial

- According to the Forbes Rich List, he is one of the US’s wealthiest men - ranked 153rd with a net worth of $2.1 billion (£1.07 billion)

- He likes to be known as a self-made man, although his wife, Ann, inherited a big stake in Wal-Mart from her father, who co-founded the retail giant

- Aged 59, he is married with two children. His business interests include retailing, sports, and real estate. Kroenke’s main love is basketball, but he has interests in clubs in five major sports in the US and has a reputation for success on the sports field or basketball court for making a profit

- Kroenke owns the basketball team the Denver Nuggets, ice hockey’s Colorado Avalanche, and the Colorado Rapids football club, as well as a lacrosse team. He is also a co-owner of the St Louis Rams in the NFL

- The Rams won the Super Bowl in 2000 while the Avalanche took the Stanley Cup in 2001. All Kroenke’s clubs reached the playoffs in their sports in the past two seasons

- The proposed Arsenal-Rapids alliance will see the American club renamed as either Arsenal Colorado or Colorado Arsenal. The Rapids may also change their strip to the cranberry shade used by Arsenal last year

- He says he is open-minded about buying into football in England but if Arsenal’s owners – Danny Fiszman (25%), Nina Bracewell-Smith (15.9%) and David Dein (14.6%) – ever do decide to sell, Kroenke would give them a ready-made option