The Merseyside story beginning February 2007 saw a pair of Americans coming with a cool £218.9 million to acquire a decarated English Premiership Club. Fast fading Manchester United had been cruising from victory to championship to cup kings and every thing else in between, a feat Liverpool seemed to have forgotten.
What was so cool about the Americans was their money and expertise in the sports. They were billionaires of note and Tom Hicks owned the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball team as well the Dallas Stars National Hockey League franchise and George Gillett was owner of Montreal Canadiens of the same league.
Barely a year later Tom Hicks was already involved in takeover talks with Dubai International Capital. DIC wanted to control the club but Hicks wanted power and stuck to his guns. This became the beginning of the decline of Liverpool. At that time, DIC was going to pay about £400 million but the deal but it never was to be.
At the beginning of this year, the troubled former heavy weights had to erect 'For Sale' boards at Anfield as Liverpool started to feel the battering of lack of form and money. The American owners, Hicks and Gillett, appointed Barclays Capital to find a buyer.
The Royal Bank of Scotland is said to given their support to the club's sale by offering financing to potential buyers and the team's dire situation led creditors asking Liverpool's owners to pay just £100 million of the £250million debt.
You will remember the Chinese buyer who had all but sealed the deal only for the parties to reports that the Chinese millionaire was a pretender. It turns out there was no agreement on the price. Several rich Asians were 'interested and as proved by the latest, Peter Lim who offered a better offer that the New England Sports Ventures, it turns out that whoever has the final say is anti-Asian.
Hicks and Gillett said previous and current offers undervalued the Liverpool FootballClub tremendously and tried to block the sale of the club to the Boston Red Sox owner s, which the Liverpool's board seems to favour despite a £20 million deficient offer as compared to Lim's offer which he has since withdrawn, because he believes he is just being ignored and that no onme is willing to do business with him. Beside the £320 million purchase price, £40 million would be available for Roy Hodgson to beef up his squad in January, 2011.
Hicks and Gillett increased the complexity of the matter by making a legal challenge to stop the sale of the club for a song. They temporarily lost the fight as New England Sports Ventures were given a go-ahead to purchase the club by the Premier League.
As it is, the Royal Bank of Scotland got the British court backing the club's board and its right to negotiate a deal, thrilling the new American buyers and granting current American owner amunnition as they got granted a temporary restraining order on the sale in a Texas court. The circus continued as the British court ruled that American court ruling is restrained. As we speak, Hicks and Gillett's lawyers in Dallas are filing a motion for contempt of court which asked a judge to jail and fine club chairman Martin Broughton and other defendants.
By the end of the weekend, Liverppol may belong to an African owner as Americans are engaging in a bruising legal battle. I will be visiting the RBS who promise to finance the new buyer, I may just score and fire Hodgson and do the coaching myself. This will be the last you read about the Liverpool sale on this column. They will now walk alone.
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