Liverpool’s Present Company is to be transformed into Café Baggio, a “café-bar for football romantics by football romantics”.

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The all-day café-bar, which takes its name from legendary 1990s Italian forward Roberto Baggio, will serve classic cocktails, food and will include a retail space for vintage football shirts and accessories.

Thompson told CLASS that the change came about after he realised he no longer wanted to operate an exclusively night time venue.

He said: “I fell out of love with working evenings and I didn’t want to shoehorn a daytime offering into Present Company – it didn’t make sense.

“The new venue Café Baggio is a passion project - football has always been a big part of my life.”

The venue will offer different experiences, catering to a wide set of customers.

“The front of the room will be very much a café-bar - if you don't care about football then you'll still feel at home, while at the back it’ll be a bit of a footy hipster paradise.”

While football will be regularly shown, Thompson says the venue will focus on “the bigger games”, clarifying that the venue is a “café-bar that shows football, rather than a sports bar”.

Leading the team alongside Thompson will be Patrick Saleh, Present Company’s longest serving team member.

The venture comes off the back of beverage consultancy work Thompson has undertaken for Newcastle United FC, in which his “eyes were open” to the opportunities within football hospitality for a cocktail programme.

Under the banner of House of Baggio, Thompson plans to extend his consultancy to work with other football clubs to improve their cocktail offering.

Café Baggio’s standard hours will be 10am-6pm Sunday to Wednesday and 10am to midnight Thursday to Saturday. Though mid-week Champions League games will see extended hours with the otherwise classical English food shifting focus to “European Bites for European Nights”.