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Just when you thought it was safe to go in the boardroom
Fri Sep 17 11:26AM
Liverpool fans waking up this morning must have felt rather good ahead of the weekend's fixture with Manchester United.
A decent result in the Europa League, Joe Cole performing admirably, Roy Hodgson smiling: things were looking up.
A touch of optimism seemed all the more appropriate, given that United had looked lethargic against Rangers, have failed to nail wins twice already in the league and their main man Wayne still appears to be playing in an emotional shroud.
But then the chirpy Scousers will have opened their newspapers. And there was the news no-one wished for. Tom Hicks was trying to retain control of the club. A month ahead of Halloween and the monster is on the prowl again.
Liverpool fans thought they had seen the last of the great Texan imposter. Certainly the manager did. The way Hodgson was talking this week about the need to sort out the sale of the club and bring in new owners as quickly as possible suggested he thought the American partnership that had wrought such damage on Anfield was consigned to history.
But now Hicks at least, it seems, wants to cling on. He is looking to pay off the debt he owes to RBS and stay in charge. Good idea, you might think, to remove the debt he inflicted on the club at the earliest opportunity.
Except being Hicks, his plan to unburden himself of the RBS shackle did not involve anything as simple as taking a wheelbarrow-load of his own money and emptying it on the counter of his local branch. Businessmen like Hicks don't do anything as vulgar as use their own money in transactions. No, he was seeking another source of investment, another financial instrument, another complicated transactional arrangement. In other words, he was looking to borrow the cash from someone else.
Nothing would change. If he held on, buffered by with some new backer's high-interest loan, hoping that - despite his scandalously cack-handed stewardship - somehow the club's value would increase, thus bloating his wholly unearned profit, Liverpool would still be ensnared by the debt shackles he foisted on the club. Still faltering in the transfer market. Still falling behind their rivals.
Indeed, Sunday's fixture against United gives us some idea of how things are beginning to shape up in the Premier League. The great debt derby pitches the two most financially hamstrung outfits in English football history together. And it is not fanciful to see the effect the ownership is having on their relative standings.
At United, the Ferguson years (and Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs's chronology-defying exploits) are papering over the cracks. But the evidence of debt-induced under-investment is growing. The manager's insistence that he will only enter the transfer market to buy the young for improvement sounds like a typically clever rationalisation of a bar on big purchases.
A similar policy holds sway at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Glazer-owned American football franchise, which, under the family's ownership, has stumbled from Superbowl to semi-bankrupt also-rans in a decade.
At Liverpool, the income gap from being obliged to play in front of 40,000 while their rivals host 60,000 plus is growing wider by the day. A new stadium, as Hodgson has constantly intimated since his arrival, is absolutely crucial to the club's development. And it won't happen under Hicks's watch.
Meanwhile, Arsenal and Tottenham are in a much happier position; both indebted but with investment in players and stadium to show for their outlay, rather than simply adding to their owner's portfolio.
As for Manchester City and Chelsea, they operate in a financial Disneyland that puts the model at Liverpool and United in even more stark focus.
Sure, there is nowhere else you would rather be than at Old Trafford on Sunday lunchtime: history insists it will be full of intrigue, rivalry and soap opera plot twists, doubtless culminating in a Michael Owen injury-time winner for the home side. Yet the facts remain as depressing as ever.
It has been said before, but we should never tire of saying it, until those whose first interest is their own pocket are removed from the boardroom, the North West's two historic giants will continue to diminish before our very eyes.
Comments1 - 30 of 32
Fri Sep 17 11:26AM
Liverpool fans waking up this morning must have felt rather good ahead of the weekend's fixture with Manchester United.
A decent result in the Europa League, Joe Cole performing admirably, Roy Hodgson smiling: things were looking up.
A touch of optimism seemed all the more appropriate, given that United had looked lethargic against Rangers, have failed to nail wins twice already in the league and their main man Wayne still appears to be playing in an emotional shroud.
But then the chirpy Scousers will have opened their newspapers. And there was the news no-one wished for. Tom Hicks was trying to retain control of the club. A month ahead of Halloween and the monster is on the prowl again.
Liverpool fans thought they had seen the last of the great Texan imposter. Certainly the manager did. The way Hodgson was talking this week about the need to sort out the sale of the club and bring in new owners as quickly as possible suggested he thought the American partnership that had wrought such damage on Anfield was consigned to history.
But now Hicks at least, it seems, wants to cling on. He is looking to pay off the debt he owes to RBS and stay in charge. Good idea, you might think, to remove the debt he inflicted on the club at the earliest opportunity.
Except being Hicks, his plan to unburden himself of the RBS shackle did not involve anything as simple as taking a wheelbarrow-load of his own money and emptying it on the counter of his local branch. Businessmen like Hicks don't do anything as vulgar as use their own money in transactions. No, he was seeking another source of investment, another financial instrument, another complicated transactional arrangement. In other words, he was looking to borrow the cash from someone else.
Nothing would change. If he held on, buffered by with some new backer's high-interest loan, hoping that - despite his scandalously cack-handed stewardship - somehow the club's value would increase, thus bloating his wholly unearned profit, Liverpool would still be ensnared by the debt shackles he foisted on the club. Still faltering in the transfer market. Still falling behind their rivals.
Indeed, Sunday's fixture against United gives us some idea of how things are beginning to shape up in the Premier League. The great debt derby pitches the two most financially hamstrung outfits in English football history together. And it is not fanciful to see the effect the ownership is having on their relative standings.
At United, the Ferguson years (and Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs's chronology-defying exploits) are papering over the cracks. But the evidence of debt-induced under-investment is growing. The manager's insistence that he will only enter the transfer market to buy the young for improvement sounds like a typically clever rationalisation of a bar on big purchases.
A similar policy holds sway at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Glazer-owned American football franchise, which, under the family's ownership, has stumbled from Superbowl to semi-bankrupt also-rans in a decade.
At Liverpool, the income gap from being obliged to play in front of 40,000 while their rivals host 60,000 plus is growing wider by the day. A new stadium, as Hodgson has constantly intimated since his arrival, is absolutely crucial to the club's development. And it won't happen under Hicks's watch.
Meanwhile, Arsenal and Tottenham are in a much happier position; both indebted but with investment in players and stadium to show for their outlay, rather than simply adding to their owner's portfolio.
As for Manchester City and Chelsea, they operate in a financial Disneyland that puts the model at Liverpool and United in even more stark focus.
Sure, there is nowhere else you would rather be than at Old Trafford on Sunday lunchtime: history insists it will be full of intrigue, rivalry and soap opera plot twists, doubtless culminating in a Michael Owen injury-time winner for the home side. Yet the facts remain as depressing as ever.
It has been said before, but we should never tire of saying it, until those whose first interest is their own pocket are removed from the boardroom, the North West's two historic giants will continue to diminish before our very eyes.
Comments1 - 30 of 32