Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton has clarified in an interview with Liverpoolfc.tv the current situation surrounding the sale of Liverpool Football Club to New England Sports Ventures. Tom Hicks and George Gillett attempted to remove Managing Director Christian Purslow and Commercial Director Ian Ayre to block the deal which Tom Hicks believes undervalues the club. Broughton doesn’t believe the Amercian owners really have a legal case:
“The court will ultimately decide whether the owners were successful. The reasoning behind it was that the owners felt we were reviewing two bids which they considered undervalued the club and therefore they wished to remove Christian and Ian and replace them with Mack Hicks, who is Tom’s son, and Lori McCutcheon, who also works with him. We don’t think it was valid to do it. Essentially when I took the role they gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings.”
The offer from Boston Reds Sox owners New England Sport Ventures is worth £300m and would rid the club of all “acquisition debt.” Broughton believes the sale will only take a week to complete if the court rules in his favour over the boardroom dispute:
“The key thing is the court case. We need to go to the court to get a declaratory judgement, which is for the court to declare that we did act validly in completing the sale agreement, and then the buyers can complete the sale. We have to get Premier League approval and I’m certain that’s not going to be an issue. There are one or two minor things like that but the key issue is the court, which should meet I would think next week sometime. That is the most likely time, in short order.”
Asked whether the owners can block the sale, Broughton replied:
“Well, we have to win the court case. So effectively yes, if they win the court case they can block the sale. But then we may have one or two other thoughts in mind as well.”
The LFC chairman doesn’t believe the legal wrangles will drag on:
“We should get a declaratory judgement I would have thought probably by the end of next week, in short order. There is an appeal process but that is also very fast.”
The full transcript of Broughton’s Q&A can be found here.
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Cautious optimism is called for. What I understand, the new owners (New England Sports Ventures) are going to buy the club for a total of £300 million in cash. If this is cash money, and if they can put up £300 million without having to borrow it, it would be welcome. This money will effectively be paid to RBS, which would then leave LFC with no debt allowing decent net money to spend on players. Most importantly it appears Hicks and Gillette will get nothing from the deal, and they could even be left with as much as a £100 + million loss between them.
The first and most important point is to invest in the squad to enable us to compete. I think a net figure of £25 million per year over the next 5 years would be the minimum needed to help us compete. This would be possible as long as no debt is heaped on the club.
Now, with regards the stadium. I think it’s clear that they will need to borrow to fund the building of the new stadium. For example, if they borrow £350 million to build the stadium to completion, then sell the naming rights for £150 million which would leave total debt of £200 million, would be a sensible way to fund it. This debt would be self financing from the stadium itself and new revenue streams that LFC would generate, and having some debt is always a good business practice. That debt would be secured on the stadium, so technically it would be a mortgage on the stadium borrowed hopefully under favourable terms over a longer time which would have no effect on investment in players.
The management issues from the top to bottom of our club are also a deep concern to all LFC fan. From my point of view the transition should take place as soon as possible and then without any qualms we need Hodgson, Purslow and Broughton unceremoniously removed. They represent the old regime and I for one want nothing to do with them after this is complete. Hopefully the new owners will realise this.
My caveat is clear, it should only take place as above otherwise they are no better than Hicks & Gillett.
Not another yanks. But its better than the yanks now. I wish the Huang comes back to buy from the yanks as the china and asia market is huge humongous !!! And liverpool will never WA again
1. Sale this players to get some money and mainthings to give our younger to get changes to play to senior team:
1) Itandje (unused player) ALREADY GONE
2) Degen (only can go forwatd,not defend) ALREADY GONE
3) Insua (slow) ALREADY GONE
4) Krygiakos (old) REASONABLE 4TH CHOICE CH
5) Poulsen (next stupid lucas) NOT GOOD ENOUGH
6) Maxi (he has no idea when he get ball) BEST PLAYER END OF LAST SEASON
7) Lucas (not good player) PLAYED BETTER THAN GERRARD LAST SEASON
El Zhar ( rafa spoiled him)NEVER GOOD ENOUGH AND ALWAYS INJURED, ALREADY GONE
9) Ngog (not the youngster for top team) GREAT YOUNG PROSPECT AND TOP SCORER SO FAR
Good Young Players To Give Changes:
1) Peter Gulacsi PROMISING
2) Stephen Darby NOT GOOD ENOUGH
3) Jack Robinson TO YOUNG BUT PROMISING
4) Martin Kelly NEARLY THERE
5) Danny Wilson TO YOUNG,PROMISING
6) Daniel Ayala OUT ON LOAN,PROMISING
7) Chris Mavinga TO YOUNG,PROMISING
Jay Spearing NOT GOOD ENOUGH
9) Nathan Eccleston GOOD YOUNG PLAYER
10) Daniel Pacheco VERY GOOD YOUNG PLAYER, NEARLY THERE
11) David Amoo TO YOUNG, VERY PROMISING
12) Christopher Butchmann (very good german younger,17, but rafa sold him) SOLD TO FULHAM AND THEN SOLD ON AGAIN
LOL,LOL,LOL
YOUR REASONS FOR NOT USING 4-2-3-1 IS BASED ONLY ON THE FACT THE STRIKER, WHOEVER HE MAYBE GETS LONELY
I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU GIVE THAT TACTICAL SPEECH AT ANFIELD.
YOUR NOT DOING VERY WELL ARE YOU AKASH, AND YOU WANT TO MANAGE LFC, BUT YOU DON’T KNOW WHICH PLAYERS ARE STILL HERE OR GONE.
KEEP PLAYING WITH YOUR CRAYONS YOU IDIOT
THAT WAS TO POSTED TO AKASH BY THE WAY