The Owners.
When Tom Hicks and George Gillett bought the club back in 2007 from David Moores they made a number of promises and assertions. Amongst them the infamous “spade in the ground” promise and ‘Not like the Glazers’.
Sometimes, in life, everyone is trying to do the right things.. but somehow it all goes tits up. People pull in slightly different directions.. misunderstandings take place. And pretty soon everyone is knee deep in it holding onto a bit of rope and wondering where it all went wrong and what that terrible smell is.
The simple truth seems to be that George Gillett and Tom Hicks have tried to run Liverpool FC as a business. Their use of a leveraged buy-out to purchase the club and their reliance on loans and financing for their plans shows that they simply didn’t want to be too involved in the life and times of Liverpool football club. Their loss. Had they shown a bit more faith, perhaps we would not all be here.
However..in business terms their behaviour has been pretty standard. The leveraged buy-out is a fairly standard practice of businessmen minimising risk on huge investments. The idea being that – by improving profitability – the business can be sold for a significant amount of profit. None of this actually has to affect the business itself badly. In fact – if it’s done well it can greatly boost that business. If Liverpool FC were a business Hicks and Gillett could point to a number of factors that would show good ownership:
- The amount of money that Liverpool FC makes has gone up significantly since they took over.
- They have invested. The number of transfers over the 10million pund mark has increased markedly since before their takeover. In recent times there has been the purchase of Torres, Mascherano, Keane, Johnson, Aquilani and Babel. all over that mark. Prior to that we had? Cisse and Heskey.
- They borrowed money to buy the club but have invested their own money to improve the squad.
- The club is now worth much more than when they bought it.
However Liverpool FC is not really just a business. And football is not really as simple as other sports businesses where often investment = results. The fact is that Hicks and Gillett misunderstood what Liverpool FC is all about and, coupled with a downturn in the finance markets that led to broken promises about the stadium, just didn’t have the money to pull it off in the long term.
I think they realise that and that’s why the club is now up for sale. They may be asking a little much for it.. but the market will dictate what they get.
And who we get.
Their attitude seems to have been that they are/where prepared to invest while not taking out money and make their profit from the sale at the end. In this respect their behaviour IS different to the Glazers at United.. who appear to be taking money from the profit of the club.. as well as servicing their debts.
So, while Hicks and Gillett took a fairly hefty wedge of expenses.. it is nothing like the sums that the Glazers are leeching from United through a variety of mediums. I would be shocked and appalled at the Way the Glazers run that club if it wasn’t for the fact it’s ManU.
In time I think we’ll look back on Hicks and Gillett as being ok owners. But just not ok for Liverpool.
As much as I hate the thought of a Chelsea fan being in overall charge of the club the search for a new owner is actually a fairly simple matter. There are only a limited number of people or organisations that could possibly even contemplate it. I suspect they are already well known to BarCap, Broughton and his team. As long as they all do their jobs and complete a thorough enough background check then we’ll just have to wait and see who finally stumps up the cash.
In the meantime let’s hope the owners just sign the cheques. So we can read about the new players in the papers!
The Media.
Noam Chomsky once suggested that the media could be used to control the population. But now it’s gone beyond control itself! With so many sources from so many different mediums (and I don’t mean Eileen Drewery!), each one chasing the only thing that matters to them.. money, and widespread use of the internet with all it’s open and free forums, there is no way there can be any conspiricies or media agendas. Only the chase for readership and maybe the odd axe to grind on some web blog or other.
However it’s become vital to a club like liverpool. It grows and it spirals… but that just goes to show how much support and interest there is out for anything Liverpool related. We rely on it to get our information, to give our opinions, to hear rumours and tidbits. It generates money and continues the cycle to grow the fanbase and thus generate even more money and attention for the club.
Ex-players abound, deriving their living from talking about the game, and fair play to them all. Hansen, Lawrenson, Thompson, Molby, Barnes, Redknapp, Souness, Whelan, Collymore. They’ve all had a say – and probably a few more that I’ve forgotten.. but I don’t blame them one little bit. Each is only saying what they think and at least they all care enough to come out and say it. I hope each of them gets a nice fat cheque.. they earned it by being great players for us. I can’t help but be a little proud that so many of our ex-players feature so prominently. Well.. apart from Collymore.
Ultimately the media gives us what they think we want (apart from Collymore).. news, opinion and entertainment. It’s just a matter of being careful what you believe. If it ain’t got quotes – it ain’t of note.
But really all we supporters want from them is… something to talk about.
Only Kenny Dalglish will do, are you listnening Cristian Purslow?????
good and different article. an interesting way of looking at things.
AND the first person who i’ve ever seen write “bated breath” correctly.
rely on the owners.are you f***ing mad you t**t.
I have a feeling anon@5:58 may not have realised the article is more than a page long…. 😀
dont agree,
1st, the managers jobs is a poisined chalise as working at LFC is a nightmare under the Yanks.
2nd, the purchased you attributed to the Yanks were in fact Rafa dealing and making money in the market and reinvesting as he only had £16m net spend. They have not put their own money in the club and even the cash that they were forced to pay RBS is accounted for as a debt on LFC. Cash from recent transactions was not made available to Rafa which indicated it was used elsewhere. Where?
3rd, the media have been writing utter nonsense about LFC, Rafa, Zonal Marking etc…. Some of our ex-players have made some comments that showed little intelligence and no research, example the £200m Rafa spent when his sales are not taken into account, or Hansen saying Rafa has left LFC with a worse squad then he inherited. These are not people to be complemented or thought of highly if they make such comments when the club needs support and not negative and false garbage.
I cant accept the Yanks or the behaviour of the media and ex-players as anything but culpable in undermining LFC and dragging us through the muck of gutter garbage.
Frank,
Thanks for the reply, let me try and answer your points.
1st… the poisoned chalice. Does this mean, Frank that you would turn down the chance to manage lfc? Would I? Would Sven Goran Eriksson? Would Kenny Dalglish?
No. As I was trying to point out… it may seem like a nightmare to the type of mercenary manager who is only interested in big budgets and short term contracts… but to be honest that’s not the type of manager we need.
Yes it’s going to be a hard job… but it’s worth bearing in mind that the relationship the new manager will have with the owners may be totally different to the one Rafa had.
2nd… You make a good point that Rafa used his available spend quite wisely and increased the value of the squad far more than the amount he received. That’s what made him a good manager. However where did the 16 million net spend per annum come from? It came from Hicks and Gillett… and it’s a significant investment. more than enough to build a strong squad. Liverpool are not like ManU or Chelsea or Real or Barca… we haven’t been and are not the type of club that buys high profile big name players… we make them.
Of course, being businessmen they expect a return on their investment, they want their money back… but at least the investment was there. As for where the money went… we’ll see.
3rd… you misunderstand me, I think. I’m not saying I agree with a lot of the guff that’s been written but that the attention shows how big the club is. And that everyone’s entitled to an opinion.
In the final analysis the point is that neither the yanks, the media or the ex-players are responsible for awful year we had last year. And that’s the real reason why the club is in the position it is. Results.
Gee Sinha,
Nice to have an intelligent debate about football for a change, please allow me to respond.
1st, I agree with you about mercenary managers and I would not turn such a job down, but many who are ill-suited would not turn it down.
The quality of manager we require would have to consider the impact on their reputations which results from dealing with these people. Much of Rafa’s bad press has origins of Yank or boardroom briefings. How can a class manager manger when such behaviour is by test of history very possible.
Although I agree that a new manager might have a better relationship with the owners, the type of manager who is likely to have such a relationship is also likely to be substandard and one seeking to make a name for themselves rather than the type who has a name to protect and therefore will not stand for the lies and asset stripping.
2nd, The 16m spend was easily covered by what Rafa earned in Europe and from the ELP. I do not believe that the Yanks have put a single penny in from their own pockets. Should you be able to prove me wrong, I’ll happily stand corrected.
I believe that Rafa has financed them for these three years and now they must understand that this source financing has gone to Milan. Will a new manager better Rafa’s record? This I would be confident could happen if the right type of manager is brought in and this does not look likely with the names touted about.
Had Rafa received all his earnings from the CL only, he would have had a pot between £20m and £30m per season. Now what a difference would that have made to him and our club over that last three years?
3rd, I have no complaints on this point although I disagree on the matter of what really affected us last season. I believe we over achieved the previous season and we have been over achieving throughout the Rafa’s reign.
When a club is so divided, the hacks and mischief mongers have a field day. Do you believe the media would have been so brazen had the club been united with good sensible ownership and board?
We had a magnificent run under Rafa and it could have been better had he been working with people of more integrity and better football business sense. The owners who are seeking a profit are seeking it for nothing and I believe this to be the real reason Rafa had to eventually fail.
Their business sense has to also be questioned when they continually undermined Rafa when they should have given him the room to spend the money he was earning for the club. We need to at least compete with Villa and Spurs and this we have not done since the arrival of the Yanks.
I actually like your view of things, it’s just that I don’t believe it to reflect the reality of what is happening to LFC.