The English Premier League Blog

The Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton, who was brought in by current owners  Tom Hicks and George Gillett to help sell the club, has hailed it a great day for the Liverpool club after a deal was concluded with New England Sports Ventures for a £300M sale.

However, yesterday the current American owners attempted  to bring in two new members of the board, that would allow them to then vote against the sale, but they lost by a 3-2 vote by the current board, and subsequently the bid was officially approved.

The Premier League has said they will approve the bid as soon as this Friday, October 8th, but it seems that Americans, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, who will lose on the deal, are busy taking legal advice to see if they can stop the deal – somehow – anyhow.

How’s that for acting in the best interests of the Liverpool club?

Unfortunately the two owners have come across in the last few years as simply using Liverpool FC as a means to make a big profit, and if this deal comes through they will be the losers, but the Liverpool club looks to be the big winner.

Broughton is confident things will progress and the prospective new owners, an American sports investment company, which we know have vitalised the Boston Red Sox baseball franchise, and won their first two World Series in 2004 and 2007, for the first time since they last won back in 1918. They also won World Series Championship sin 1916, 1915, 1912 and 1903 – so the new owners certainly brought success back to the famous Red Sox baseball club.

We hope they will do the same thing for Liverpool, and if this deal goes through it looks like Liverpool will be back on the right road – for sure.

This si the rather lengthy statement the Liverpool Chairman has made about the new potential owners, but it does go through that most of the current Liverpool  debt will be paid off:

“This is a great day for Liverpool Football Club and the supporters,” “I can understand why there might be an instant reaction about them being American. But being American is not a problem, leveraged ownership of a football club is the problem.” “I just hope we can deliver what we have set out to do. We have found the right owners. There will be money to invest in the squad.”

“It is all about winning, that is their philosophy.” “You have to look at what they have done. (they being New England Sports Ventures) .  This is all going to be about not ‘What we promise to do’ but to see what ‘We do actually do’ on their part.”  ”If you look at the Boston Red Sox, they have taken a major traditional team, previously successful but not at their peak, and resuscitated it to be a winner.” “They understand winning on the field helps winning off the field and makes the investment an attractive investment and they have a track record to prove it.”

“They have been the most successful team since acquiring the Red Sox in 2001 – there are parallels with Liverpool.”  ”They don’t want any hostages to fortune, very sensibly, so they’re not going to make any comments about how much (money) or anything like that,”

“Let’s look at what they have done at Boston, what they said in Boston, what they have done in terms of investing in players and I think you get a high degree of confidence of their willingness to do that.”  ”If you look at the Boston Red Sox, when they arrived everyone said ‘We have to build a new stadium, this one is clapped out’.” “They looked at it, its tradition, and decided to invest heavily to reinvent Fenway Park, rather than move to a new stadium.”

“There is definitely a commitment to invest in a stadium and we will finish up with a 60,000+ seater stadium. Where they haven’t finalised their view is whether that should be the new stadium or whether there are still opportunities to build at Anfield itself.”  ”This is a very profitable organisation, it has a substantial number of wealthy investors – about 17 I think – and it has very little debt in the organisation,”

“I don’t know to what extent they are taking debt into the holding company or to what extent they are calling on the owners – frankly that is their affair – but it is not debt which will be close to Liverpool.”  ”I understand the concerns but they are not [replacing one massive debt] with another one.” The deal agreed with NESV will see Liverpool freed of £200M of debt with £37M  of “external debt” – a typical working overdraft facility – remaining.”

It would also mean Hicks and Gillett would lose around  a£140M, as the NESV acquisition would only remove the burden of the acquisition debt, effectively paying off most of what was owed to Royal Bank of Scotland.

However, the money the Americans themselves put in a holding company would not be covered, so you can see why the current owners are trying to submarine the deal.

But it seems to us that Tom Hicks and George Gillett have had their fingers burned in the Liverpool purchase – and what’s that famous saying again - you live by the sword you die by the sword.

But sometimes, being burned is a good thing – because it teaches you a lesson.  Greed is not good – and never will be.

Comments welcome.