Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Could Liverpool’s nightmare be over?  There is certainly a little more hope today, after a bid to buy the club by the parent company of US baseball franchise, ‘Boston Red Sox’, was accepted by the board. The proviso is that the two Americans who are currently in charge are fiercely resistant to the deal, claiming that Liverpool FC has been undervalued.  In a desperate attempt to derail a takeover, Hicks and Gillett, tried to sack two members of the club’s board yesterday. They claim that their fellow directors are not acting in the company’s interest.  It is a brass-necked contention from the pair, who saddled the club with a crippling debt following their leveraged buy-out. A majority on the board, the bank which financed the debt, the fans, the manager and Liverpool’s players have all agreed for months that Hicks and Gillett are the problem. Should the club finally get a buyer, its problems will not be at an end.  Liverpool will still be in the bottom three and the playing s

Liverpool's prospects of claiming some silverware this season could end at Anfield tonight. If Rafa Benitez' side cannot overturn a one goal deficit against Lille the Europa Cup will have gone the same way as the League Cup, the F.A. Cup and the Premier League. Fernando Torres has indicated that he might have to look elsewhere to pursue trophies, Albert Riera has highlighted the manager's lack of communication with players and Steven Gerrard's recent conduct suggests that he is feeling the strain. On the pitch, a comfortable win against Portsmouth not withstanding, Liverpool's form has gone from bad to worse. Lille are a plodding, mediocre team and the 1-0 victory they were handed in France came courtesy of a deplorably negative display by the Anfield men. Liverpool couldn't muster a goal either at Wigan Athletic. Even a team as gutless as Tottenham Hotspur was able to run in nine goals against the Latics. Torres is conservative when he suggests that five

Liverpool’s Champions’ League victory recedes ever further into the rear-view mirror of history. It is now the fifth season since that campaign, which climaxed in Istanbul, and to celebrate the club has tumbled out of this year’s competition at the group stages. Rafa Benitez’ side was not eliminated on the strength of its performances against Debrecen. Although last night the team delivered another unconvincing one goal victory against the minnows. Liverpool, under Benitez, have a habit of doing ’just enough’ to beat substandard opposition in Europe and have often advanced on that basis. This time two fortunate victories against the Hungarians could not offset a defeat at Fiorentina and, crushingly, one point from six against Olympique Lyonnais. The brutal truth is that Benitez’ team deserves to be eliminated from the Champions’ League, just as it deserved to be beaten by Arsenal’s second string in the Carling Cup and just as it deserves to languish seventh in the Premier League.

Robert Peston might like the analogy he has drawn between Liverpool FC and the UK economy, but unlike struggling households, corporations or indeed the British government, the club has not incurred its debt by spending money which it did not have. If there is an apposite parallel to be drawn it might be between the Anfield Reds and Ulster Bank, which has remained profitable throughout the financial crisis, but was still forced to constrain its outgoings and shed staff due to a profligate and indebted owner. Liverpool supporters will not be celebrating Gillett and Hicks successfully refinancing their ownership of the club. It is the Americans’ liability which fans’ ticket money is being used to service. And its is the bloody-minded greed of the two men which has prevented them accepting healthy returns on their original investments offered by prospective new owners. Peston quips, “It may have been foolish to borrow too much, but the lesson has been learned (presumably) and the figh

Liverpool Football Club is a highly successful company, returning a handsome profit, and yet it is unable to invest in its future because it is hampered by its owners’ unmanageable debts. Ironically, the club’s financial impairment may have paid a paradoxical sporting dividend earlier this week, when Rafa Benitez lost Gareth Barry, a player he has long coveted, to newly wealthy Manchester City. Liverpool’s inability to gather together £12 million to purchase the England midfielder should intensify its focus on retaining the services of Xabi Alonso, whose range of passing was essential to a sustained title challenge last season. However, if Alonso goes to Real Madrid, and if Benitez cannot freshen his squad with players drawn from the top level of the European game, then the club will not build on its achievements. Liverpool itself last year made a profit of £10.2m, taken from record £159.1m turnover. However the holding company suffered a £42.6m loss due to the crippling burden o

No, not Caitriona Ruane this time. Although it hardly represents an excuse for some dismal on field performances, Liverpool’s high league position has been achieved despite an unseemly boardroom civil war which has drawn in manager Rafa Benitez. The club’s American owners have not delivered on promises which they made when they took over the club. In addition the relationship between the pair has deteriorated to the point that the tandem is unworkable. Ominously George Gillett does not appear to have agreed to negotiations, but if the Kuwaiti family with whom Tom Hicks is discussing a sale is even reasonably conscientious, they would offer a distinct improvement to the Americans. To Hicks and Gillett I say – sell, go away, don’t come back.

Liverpool FC could be in the possession of Dubai Investment Company right now. DIC would have financed a new stadium, taken on any debt held by the club and provided something toward a transfer kitty, in order that Rafa Benitez might rebuild his team. Indeed, having had their initial bid spurned, in favour of American owners Gillett & hicks, the Arab investors have returned several times, offering the pair substantial profits on top of their initial investment, to sell the club and unburden it of the requirement to pay debt which they incurred in its purchase. Against this background, Liverpool will announce profits of £40 million , £25 million of which will be immediately siphoned off to service the borrowing which landed the club with these parasitic Yanks in the first place! Apparently the pair reaffirmed their ‘commitment’ to Liverpool and their intention to remain owners for the foreseeable future. Their commitment is not wanted or needed. The club need new owners , who

Sandwiched between Liverpool Football Club marking the 19th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and a vital Champions League semi-final tie against Chelsea, Liverpool’s co-owner Tom Hicks has thought it propitious to give an interview to Sky Sports, in which he refers to the club’s chief executive as ‘a disaster’. Hicks’ interview seems to comprise an attempt to re-ingratiate himself with supporters, but in its spectacularly poor timing and its back-biting character these comments are unlikely to restore confidence in the reviled co-owner. Ironically Hicks comments about Parry do contain a grain of truth. Parry’s fractious relationship with manager Rafa Benitez and his tendency to dawdle in the transfer market, have detrimentally effected attempts to build a world class team and launch a sustained challenge for the Premiership title. In contrast courting Rafa Benitez and making vague promises to clear debt saddled on the club by the American takeover, should he become sole

I have expressed the opinion through this blog that DIC do not offer a panacea for Liverpool’s ownership woes. My feeling is that the bind the club find themselves in is actually indicative of a more fundamental problem infecting the Premiership as a whole. Football clubs, once organically linked to the communities toward whom they contribute a sense of pride and belonging, are now simply investment opportunities for foreign capital. However I also share with most Liverpool fans dismay at the present owners, who have disingenuously saddled the club with a large quantity of their debt and have proceeded to fall out despite the fact their tandem ownership is barely a year old. Hicks has publicly aired grievances with manager Rafa Benitez in a fashion that is inimical to traditions of the club and the pair have failed to provide sufficient backing to enable us to compete in the transfer market. From the beginning it was my view that DIC offered more stability and a sounder financial

When George Gillett and Tom Hicks emerged as the likely owners of Liverpool FC they received a surprisingly warm welcome from supporters. Desperation to re-visit past championship glories perhaps made Koppites more susceptible to the Americans’ honeyed words. Hicks and Gillett were quick to describe themselves as merely “custodians” of a football institution and their apparent humility and new found fandom stilled the sceptical voices who suggested that the pair had no understanding of the game, were not as cash rich as the alternative bidders from Dubai and that they would finance their takeover by saddling the club with a great deal of debt. Already it appears that these sceptics were the more astute judges of the duo’s bid. Perhaps the most surprising factor in the whole affair is that people are so surprised that the deal has gone so bad so quickly. At a very early stage it became clear that the money to buy Liverpool was not readily available and that the takeover depended on