Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group insisted on Friday the Premier League club is not for sale after details emerged of a failed £2 billion ($2.6 billion) takeover bid from a cousin of Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour.
Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reported that Abu Dhabi-based Sheikh Khaled Bin Zayed Al Nehayan approached the club over several months in late 2017 and into early 2018.
He then made the £2 billion offer that would have been the most expensive takeover in the history of the game.
Liverpool -- 18-times English champions -- said the club was still open to new outside investment but is not for sale.
Britain's Press Association said it understood that the interest -- one of a number of approaches FSG have received in recent years -- did not get past the vetting stage because it was deemed neither credible nor worthy of being put to the ownership.