Almost a decade on from leaving Liverpool, Damien Comolli is playing a prominent role improving the fortunes of a club that has close ties with the Reds.
Frenchman Comolli left Anfield and his role of sporting director after being dismissed in April 2012, his transfer record coming under scrutiny after the purchases of players such as Sebastien Coates, Charlie Adam, Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll led Fenway Sports Group to take the decision to find someone else to lead that particular side of the football club.
Back in 2016, in an interview with talkSPORT, Comolli claimed it was the signing of Jordan Henderson for £16m from Sunderland that would be the main reason for his departure.
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"Henderson is one of the main reasons I got sacked," he told talkSPORT.
"The day I got sacked they told me I had made a big mistake on Jordan and he was a waste of money.
"Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but I think we paid the right price.
"He was a young English, British player and we know very often that British players are overvalued. But we were more than happy to pay the price because we thought he would become an outstanding player."
It's hard to argue on Comolli's assertion that Liverpool paid the right price, with Henderson having gone on to be one of the Reds' most important players in recent years, skippering the team after Steven Gerrard's departure and lifting a Champions League trophy and the first English league title for the club in 30 years. He has more than paid back that £16m over time.
Liverpool were heading in a specific direction with their recruitment, with FSG principal owner John Henry an admirer of the statistical nature of 'Moneyball' that had been implemented in baseball by the likes of Oakland Athletics' pioneering general manager Billy Beane.
Eventually it would be a man that Comolli helped bring to the club in 2011, Michael Edwards, that would assume the title in time, with Edwards, who departs Liverpool at the end of this season, having defined Liverpool's transfer strategy over the past six years or so.
But while some troubled waters may have made the partnership between Comolli and FSG less than smooth sailing at the time, the 49-year-old is back playing a key role for RedBird Capital Partners, the private equity firm that took an 11 per cent stake in FSG last year for a sum of $750m.
After RedBird acquired French second division side Toulouse in the summer of 2020, one of the first moves that the firm, led by founder and managing partner Gerry Cardinale, a man who hasn't ruled himself out of future ownership of Liverpool, was to hire Comolli as president of the club.
Last year saw Toulouse, who had just been relegated when RedBird took over, miss out narrowly on promotion to Ligue 1, but with 22 games played this season they lead the pack.
With RedBird now part of the ownership group at FSG and key partners, Liverpool have a connection with Toulouse. Whether that develops into something official and meaningful in time remains to be seen, but with FSG and RedBird having strong ties, Comolli hasn't strayed too far from FSG and Henry over the past decade.
And, speaking to the Football Journeys Podcast, Comolli explained how the current relationship came to be, revealing the Liverpool part-owners had come close to investing in another English club.
"When I left Fenerbahce a private equity fund, RedBird Capital got in touch with me," said Comolli.
"I had known the people at RedBird for many years and they have asked me to get involved in different projects they had.
"A few months after I got to Fenerbahce they almost did a deal to buy a club in England and they wanted to buy out my contract but I said 'I won't move from Fenerbahce'.
"I left Fenerbahce and they called me and said 'right timing' as they were about to buy a club in Europe and could I run the club for them.
"We had a lot of meetings in the US, we went to a lot of clubs. They had looked at 70 clubs in a lot of detail for three years and visited a lot of them in the space of two or three years, travelling around the world.
"Toulouse was on the market and we all agreed it was a great opportunity, great academy, great stadium, big fan base, great city, very dynamic, 110,000 students, very diverse. They had just got relegated and the owner wanted to sell. It is a big city, easy to get to and that is how we ended up buying it."
Toulouse was RedBird's first sporting acquisition.
But since taking over at Les Violets, Cardinale's firm have taken a stake in FSG and, ergo, Liverpool, the Boston Red Sox, RFK Racing and, more recently, the Pittsburgh Penguins, as well as having taken a slice of Indian Premier League cricket side Rajasthan Royals, not to mention the bevy of other investment deals struck over the past two years, including investment into FSG partners LeBron James and Maverick Carter's SpringHill Entertainment company along with FSG and Nike.
Moving forward the plan is for more teams, with specific focus on football.
RedBird have a small stake in Spanish second tier side Malaga and were linked with Sporting Lisbon last year, although the ECHO understands that despite reports to the contrary, RedBird hadn't made an approach.
But with such a weighty dossier of clubs and attention to detail already there, RedBird, who look after more than £4bn in investments, are primed to make another move when the right opportunity shows itself.
