LONDON — John Henry is the principal owner of two of the sporting world’s most visible, storied and valuable franchises — the Red Sox of Boston and the Reds of Liverpool. Yet at the moment, his baseball and soccer teams are united not in towering success but in stunning collapse.

The Red Sox finished 7-20 last September and missed the playoffs. The new season has brought a nervous start. Meanwhile, Liverpool has won only 3 of its 14 Premier League matches in 2012 and has had its reputation sullied in the clumsy handling of a case of on-field racial taunting by Luis Suárez, its star Uruguayan forward.

On Thursday, Liverpool fired its director of soccer, Damien Comolli, a Frenchman. In effect, Comolli took the fall for the profligate spending of about $175 million over the past 17 months in player acquisitions that have produced mediocre results. The signings generally appeared to contradict the “Moneyball” approach, favored by Henry, to spend judiciously on capable, lesser-known players.

“We feel there is enough talent on the pitch to win,” Tom Werner, Liverpool’s (and the Red Sox’) American chairman, told reporters, “and we’ve been dissatisfied, as most supporters have been, with the results so far.”