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Bill Gates snubbed the chance to buy Liverpool , it has emerged.

The Microsoft co-founder was offered the Reds, while New England Patriot supremo Robert Kraft was also approached, when the club attempted to force Tom Hicks and George Gillett out of Anfield, reports the Liverpool Echo.

Legal documents from the court battle between Mill Financial, Gillett and the Royal Bank of Scotland have revealed the approach to Gates, whose net worth is estimated at £68.3 billion, but he never responded to the offer.

This week saw the tenth anniversary of Hicks and Gillett’s takeover of Liverpool.

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(Image: Getty)

The US businessmen eventually agreed to sell the club in April 2010 and appointed Barclays Capital to find potential buyers.

The approach to Gates was part of a worldwide trawl for interest.

In a deposition made by Sir Martin Broughton, who was Liverpool chairman at the time, he is asked if he understood “there was at least an attempt to contact Bill Gates and Bob Kraft in the US?”

Broughton replied, “correct” before adding to another question that the search for a buyer “covered every continent and they were making contacts with people around the world.”

(Image: Al Bello)

Robert Kraft had first turned down the chance to buy Liverpool from David Moores in 2005 and again rebuffed the opportunity.

Mill Financial is targeting Gillett after he failed to repay a $70 million loan in January 2008 allowing him to meet RBS repayments, with legal papers claiming he offered 50per cent “membership interest in Liverpool” as a result of that investment.

RBS is also named as a defendant in the case, which began more than six years ago, a month after the takeover.