Another good piece re Liverpool by David Conn...So far, at QPR, there were some changes since Briatore/Ecclestone...And some fans went a little far "Richest club in the World" talk in the early days...But nothing massive like here or Man City. And despite all this billionaire talk, I hope it long continues at QPR, the preservation of the QPR heritage.
David Conn/The guadianLiverpool way gets lost amid yet another public unravellingWhen Liverpool's fans called for Kenny Dalglish on Saturday, they were really calling for a restoration of lost values
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David Conn The Guardian, Wednesday 6 October 2010 Article history
A Liverpool fan protests against the club's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/EPA
The Kop's mournful chant during Liverpool's 2-1 defeat by Blackpool on Saturday of "Dalglish, Dalglish, Dalglish" was more than just a call for the Anfield icon to replace Roy Hodgson, last season's manager of the year, now so beleaguered just seven league games into the red maelstrom.
It was a cry for everything Dalglish embodies: class and evident joy in playing the game, the decades of formidable success, the understanding, to his core, of Liverpool's proud values. Tom Hicks and George Gillett bought Liverpool in February 2007 promising to honour that heritage and build the new stadium the club believes it needs to compete among billionaires, but instead much that remained solid has slowly crumbled.
Yesterday's official club statement, in effect a public declaration of war on Hicks and Gillett by the majority non-owning directors, Martin Broughton, Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre, signalled the total exasperation of those three with the continued ownership by the Americans. It was in itself a previously unthinkable act, at the club where an integral part of the self-proclaimed "Liverpool Way" was to keep everything private, within the Anfield corridors.
Now the faithful, the fans who named their campaign group Spirit of Shankly knowing everybody will understand what that means, can add a final unravelling to the litany of what has been done to the club Shankly built. Hicks and Gillett famously promised they would not "do a Glazer", then did exactly what that Florida-based family engineered at Manchester United – borrowed the money to buy the club, then loaded the club with the responsibility of paying their debts.
The pair pledged they would have the stadium built, unveiled shiny plans but barely a sod has been disturbed. They did back Rafael Benítez with transfer funds of borrowed money and sank £144m in themselves – in loans – but the financial pressures of such indebtedness have caught up with them. This season supporters are finally witnessing a club unravelling, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres bearing the haunted expressions of superstars lost already in a relegation zone. Even to say that Liverpool lost at home to Blackpool seems like a result from another age, around 1953 perhaps, when Liverpool last made a start worse than this one. But the tangerine team won on merit after 7,000 supporters marched outside Anfield against Hicks and Gillett.
As for what happens next in this endgame being played by Broughton, Purslow and Ayre against the bank deadline of 15 October, it is still in flux. Hicks and Gillett sought to remove Purslow and Ayre yesterday to prevent the three, as a majority, approving a sale of the club to John W Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, or another, unnamed, Asian buyer. Neither, apparently, would have delivered a personal payday to the Americans. The statement said: "This matter is now subject to legal review." But the fact that the board meeting did not proceed and a sale was not approved strongly suggests that the non-owning three cannot force Hicks and Gillett to sell.
Hicks has tried to refinance, borrowing the money he and Gillett owe Royal Bank of Scotland from another finance house, which the other three directors opposed and which did not come off.
The power, everybody knows, rests with RBS, the collapsed bank now 84% owned by the British taxpayer who bailed it out. Yet the last thing the bank wants is to be in charge of a football club as high-profile, crisis-hit and emotionally volatile as Liverpool. All along, tThe possibility most pondered has been for RBS to reclaim the club on 15 October, if Hicks and Gillett do not pay up, with a buyer lined up for the bank immediately to sell to.
There are many twists lying in wait before so clinical a solution can be orchestrated, especially with the club's three directors having decided to make no secret of their opposition to Hicks and Gillett.
It is all a world away from the days when Dalglish was dinking the ball over the FC Bruges goalkeeper to win the 1978 European Cup or winning the double in 1986, his first season as manager. Hence, in contemplation of today's dreadful mess, the fans' plaintive cry for yesterday's hero.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/oct/06/liverpool-way-public-unravelling
