Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft were offered the chance to buy Liverpool as the reign of Tom Hicks and George Gillett came to an end.
The information is revealed in court documents from an ongoing legal battle between a company called Mill Financial and Gillett and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Hicks and Gillett agreed to sell Liverpool in April 2010 when they were unable to keep up with repayments of the money borrowed to purchase the club in 2007.
Barclays Capital were appointed to find potential buyers, and documents from the commercial division of the New York County Supreme Court show that Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, was approached in a worldwide search for interested parties.