The Daily Telegraph is reporting today that George Gillett and Tom Hicks are looking for a new independent chairman. They believe that their own current co-chairmanship will have to be changed either when a new investor comes into the club or to take the flak off them if no new investment is found. One of the names touted for the role is British Airways chairman Martin Broughton, so what sort of man would he be if he took over the role as sole chairman of Liverpool Football Club?
A good omen is that Broughton does have a keen interest in sport. On his CBI profile, of which he was president from January 2007 to June 2009, Broughton is described as enjoying ‘horseracing, football, golf and the theatre.’ He certainly does have a proven pedigree in the area, as he chaired the British Horseracing Board between 2004 and 2007, and also was in charge of British American Tobacco when they set up a Formula One racing team BAR.
In fact Broughton has worked for British American Tobacco for most of his career. Head of BAT’s financial services, he progressed through the company’s ranks in the 1990s to hold successive roles as deputy chairman, chief executive and chairman, a position that he held until 2004. There can be no doubting Broughton’s pedigree in the financial world and his business acumen.
Broughton is currently chairman of British Airways, a position that he has held since 2004. He has been described as one of a new breed of hands-on chairman who get truly involved in the day to day running of the business. He was the first man to be chosen as chairman outside of the airline’s management, although he had been a non-executive director since 2000 when he had been head of the company’s financial audit committee. Broughton was however, always seen as an independent figure who could shake things up and it was something he intended on doing when taking over BA. When chief executive Rod Eddington retired in 2005, former Aer Lingus chief executive Willie Walsh was appointed in his place. It was a radical choice as Walsh was known for his hard nosed style during his time at the Irish airline. Lingus was destined to fail after the disaster of September 11th but Walsh repositioned the airline as a low cost carrier, cutting the workforce by a third and increasing the profitability of the company markedly.
Despite being seen as somewhat as an outsider to the company though, Broughton had already been involved in the company for 4 years and bought into the strategy of the previous chairman and chief executive. He felt the task ahead of him was very similar to his role at BAT:
“At BAT I was involved in a business which is all about getting people to trade up to a better product when there is plain vanilla version around, a cut-price alternative if you like, and that is also what BA stands for. We are looking for people to get off the plane feeling they are pleased they paid a bit extra to fly BA and that it was worth it.”
His understanding of different markets certainly bodes well if he was to become Liverpool chairman. Broughton wanted to keep the job part time on his appointment as chairman at BA but with the current Cabin Crew strikes that are occurring at the company, he might find it difficult to. He would certainly want to continue with his Chairmanship of British Airways if he were to take over at Liverpool and such troubles would make it less likely that he would take on the added responsibility of a football club with financial issues.
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so let me get this right;
1, the out owners are wasting time, trying to get a chairmen who can hardly run his own company right, and now we have to sit here and here this crap about a new man coming in who has never worked in the football industry before and while they spent a 3 day jolly up on our fans/ tax payers money to get the club thinking we are heading in the right direction.
2, No investment news at all, rafa has had enough, torres is close to leaving if not this year but dont worry it will be after that, as mascherano has said, he loves it but we need new players, we are so lucky reina is settled because he could be saying, ” i have had enough of this” rafa is close to walking at times, and do you blame him with all the emtpy deals and huge rubbish we have had to listen two from the yankie con men.
3, They may well be bringing in good shirt deal.. er so what we have been a huge club for years and so forgive me im not going to do happy days just because we are getting what we dseire in the first place by getting a better shirt deal, liverpool is huge in many markets so its about time we get this, carlsberg are staying on to in another sponsorship deal, add this to the addidas deal which will be going through in the next 3 – 6 months, WHERE IS THIS MONEY GOING,,,, you know where it is going, to their back pockets,
I HATE THESE PAIR OF C***S I REALLY DO… WAKE UP LIVERPOOL WE HAVE TO GET THESE C***S OUT.
He is just going to be a puppet for the current ownership.It just goes to show if this is true that these 2 Americans have no respect for the fans and what they want for this club.We pay our money to watch and support our club with all the appropriate mechandising.They just take the money from it.Absolutely appalling and something should be done to oust them.
i have just emaild the government and ask them to look into the tax issues of the owners way of the way the are running the club, i have been up to liverpool 16times this year been to all away games and paid nearly £550 pounds into the club through merchadise, which i will now not do,,, i want i tax rebate, they are running the club on the countries tax payers money and secondly they are not running the club with any of their own cash, this in nearly any other country is not allowed to happen, i have also emailed the prick at b.a airways and told him he is not welcome, and i have tom hicks telephone number and have called and left a message asking him to call me back or i will send 100 emials a day and call him every day for the next year. LETS GET THESE YANKS OUT..
@Samuel
Yes, that will really help, won’t it? It’s not so much about new investment that we need, as the club is making more than enough money. It’s just that we’re paying off the debt incurred throught he purchase of the club.
An independant chairman would help the running of the club no end. He’d be able to give a black and white answer of yes or no if funds were available, rather than the grey answers we’ve been having from Hicks and Co. We took £30 million or so from the sale of Alonso last season, and yet Rafa was only give around £20 million of that to spend on a replacement. And yet we brought in quite a lot of money from our second place finish and our champions league performance. Couple that with the sale of other players and the relatively small amount spent in reply, Rafa’s not getting a fair deal transfer funds wise. A strong third party to sit between them who has no financial interest other than his salary will provide Rafa (or whoever is in charge by then) with a much better view of what he has or hasn’t go to spend.
Either way, we should not be jumping on Rafa’s case right now. That is for the off season (once England fluff themselves out of the World Cup). While the season is on, we should ALL be 100% behind Rafa, our players and our club. They need us now more than ever.
I have to agree with the fact with you, excellent points you have made on your case.
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