Ownership Saga: Are we sold, again? [R]

Replaced with 'odd' ... I should have gone with fallacious ...

I don't understand how any premise can be made that Hicks has reduced the potential of the team to succeed without similarly concluding that the team and/or Benitez are such psychological cripples that a single admission that Hicks was hedging his bets with Klinnsman could destroy the esprit de corps of the side. If that is the case ... this is not the team that can be champions anyway.

Rafa has performed less than perfectly this season
Our players have performed far less than perfectly this season
The owners have given the players and Rafa every tool they have asked for this season. Get on with it already!

Chelsea had a more poisonous atmosphere about the club at time under Mourinho. Manchester United had a fan uprising on a tremendous scale with regards to the Glazers. And yet the game went on.

Stop making Hicks into the bogeyman or using him as a crutch or excuse for failure. It is unmanly. He may be an idiot, but he hasn't done anything to damage the club significantly in the short term.

You would think the players would sit around Melwood saying ... "I cannot give it my all if I know the owner is taking out a loan." or "Who knows if Rafa is going to be here next week? Apparently the owner talked to some other manager." Goodness knows they have heard rumors about Rafa going to Real Madrid before Hicks bought the team. The only difference now is they can see Javier Maschereno and know he is signed with the club for 4 years. They can see Fernando Torres up front and know that the team can finally create a goal out of nothing. They can look at Skrtal and Agger and be convinced that an injury to Carra or the further decline of Hyppia will not hamstring the club (at least not any more than our dodgy fullbacks already do).

 

The key is the new stadium. If we get an awesome new modern stadium at the stated capacity of 71,000 or thereabouts our revenues will increase dramatically. We already know that Liverpool fans are the loudest fans in England and so having a stadium with more Scousers in can only help boost the team and intimidate the opposition even more. If we get this new stadium our revenues will jump by ~40-50 £ million per year, plus more if we entertain naming rights and host a pre-season mini-tournament like the Emirates Cup.

 

Well there is a connection. Footballers are not bright people generally, and being asked questions about who should coach or what owners should do causes them no end of intellectual distress. "It does my head in" said Rooney about learning simple guitar chords. Look at how poorly ManUre did in the year the Glazers took over, and Chelski haven't been the same since the JoSay/Roman wars started. Arsenal had a poor season last year when there were some ownership issues. These lads are fragile and playing at the top level can be easily disrupted -- it is why losing teams keep losing and winning teams keep winning -- aside from differences in talent and coaching

 

Your wrong kop holdings main asset is the club that was purchased, therefore the club first and foremost bares all debt.

 

Provided the team can fill a 71,000 or thereabouts stadium at the requisite ticket price levels (and especially the executive suites), etc.

 

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N158586080125-1442.htm

 

Yeah, the owners of the club really have nothing to do with how the club performs.


Mr. Hicks explains:
"When I was in the leverage buy-out business we bought Weetabix and we leveraged it up to make our return. You could say anyone who was eating Weetabix was paying for our purchase of Weetabix. It was just business. It is the same for Liverpool. Revenues come in from whatever source and go out to whatever source and, if there is money left over, it is profit."
http://football.guardian.co.uk/championsleague200607/story/0,,2085138,00.html

Mr. I can use LFC to fund Rangers if I choose:
[youtube]FvbqubILw2w[/youtube]

I would prefer that the supporters own the club and I am prepared to put my meager means where my mouth is.
http://www.shareliverpoolfc.co.uk/

But if this turns out to be as unfeasible as some believe then I’ll back this guy. He will win an EPL title in his first year and will win frequently or I’ll publicly eat part of my hat and post it on Youtube. He is a winner and will stop at nothing to win. Hicks? Not so much. He just wants you to pay for his Weetabix and if he can somehow win, well that is good but not that important.

[youtube]F2IXgUebtDQ[/youtube]

 

Ok, Lucius has convinced me. I too would prefer the supporters pony up the money, but at the very least the sheik is a big fan and will stop at nothing to win. The same cannot be said for Hicks.

I hate Jerry Jones as much as the next guy, but at least when the guys says he wants to win he genuinely means it. I think DIC would be genuine in that desire to win as well.

My only concern is tarnishing the reputation of Liverpool Football Club. I don't think that's all that much to be worried about though, assuming DIC lets the board go about its business and our fanbase remains the best on the planet.

We all know the latter will never change.

 

If DIC was our owners, we would have signed Mascherano by this summer. We also probably would have acquired Kaladze. Assuming they trust the manager...

 

Spot on, well stated!

 

thats a fudge their simply garuntees, that if the assett (Us!) doesnt cover the banks Loan, then they have a fallback, ie hicks will lose 30 million of his own cash, well whoopie Moores has thrown far more then that down the years into our club.

Hicks is just a soppy wanker with a big credit card, most of them business men are, atleast the dubai guy loves being at anfield and he wont want to watch sh*t

 

Of course there is no reason to believe DIC ...

a) trusts the manager ... news reports have suggested they would consider a complete reorganization at LFC

b) would not leverage LFC even more than Hicks ... DIC likes to leverage things ... they do it almost compulsively ... they carry higher debt loads than any other government in the Middle East. It is a key part of their management strategy

c) would have signed lots of new players ... they may have taken a longer-term approach or they may have taken a shorter-term approach than Hicks. But if they were considering replacing Parry and/or Benitez, it is not likely that they would have been strengthening the side according to Rafa's wishes in the short term

Regarding Masch ... his form has not suffered this season has it? He is signed. The deal has been made. If I were Hicks and I was considering signing a guy who had been through the shenanigans that Tevez and Masch were ... I would have waited a bit of time before deciding to pop down 18.3m too. This Summer was not necessarily the prudent time to sign Masch since the whole Tevez thing was up in the air. It is done know.

I am not sure Kaladze was a necessary signing. Rafa was working hard to sign Heinze ... and apparently had backing for that. The deal didn't materialize. Kaladze is not a young player and it may have been prudent to wait. In any event, we got Skrtal who is going to be excellent.

Most of the complaints about Hicks are splitting hairs and assuming things about DIC that no one can know. Whether the sultan or whomever he is has been a Liverpool fan for eons or not.

And I also find it interesting that LFC anti-Hicks fans have been generally pro-Gillett and now it turns out that they are disinterested and Rafa has not found Gillett nearly as pleasant to work with as Hicks.

I think most of the LFC fans are blowing smoke about things that they don't know about. As much as other clubs were apparently sniffing around Rafa at times over the last season or two ... Hicks was not even necessarily imprudent to sniff around Klinnsman - though he shouldn't have talked about it to be sure. Give the man a bit of a pass until the chips fall. Rafa has made some crappy decisions (Morientes unfortunately, Bellamy, Josemi, etc). So why not give Hicks the benefit of the doubt until we see evidence that the team is actually declining rather than being strengthened by these new signings?

 

I'll give you most of that but the Klinsmann bit was pure crap -- very uninformed and ill timed

 

I'll give both of you guys (Liverpool_SC) a lot of what you've said. That Klinsmann thingy was absolutely asinine.
I think I remember the attitude of a couple of months ago when the Great American businessmen saved us from being owned by the like of Thai's and Arabs!!!!! Of how awestruck they were at watching Liverpool and proud of being new owners.
Now they're the enemy but nobody can really say why

So many fans get caught up with the lies and phoney innuendoes of the sports media. One of them takes a story out of connect then the rest have to "improve and embellish" on it even if they don't know what they're talking about.

Funny, one of the examples I want to use is How Richard Jewell went from being a hero who saved people during the Atlanta Olympics to a mad bomber who nearly got lynched because of the media. The one "Brave" newscaster who said "What happened to innocent until proven guilty?" (and shouted down) was Bob Costas, a sports media guy.

Just because it's written down, doesn't mean it's gospel.



And that goes for the gospel too (My opinion!)

 

They have provided guarantess for £225m of debt, yes. And yet ... smoke and mirrors.

From the Guardian in January:

It's simple fact, guys: these spanners haven't put a penny into the club, have, indeed, constructed an elaborate web of catch-all failsafes between their purchase of the club and their wallets to ensure that only the most cataclysmic on-field events would require them to actually open the creaky clasp (and no, a single season without CL footie would not be it). Whichever way you twist this issue, no matter what avenue of the deal you explore, the club always comes out as the first port of call for the money this deal required. Not Hicks, not Gillett, not any of their holdings or assets elsewhere: always Liverpool Football Club. Simple fact.

And on top of all of that, they got a shit deal. Genius.

But let's leave that aside, as quite frankly I think we're starting to talk past each other a bit. I'm not suggesting that the practice of using debt to fund a take-over is unusual, let alone dubious. Nor am I suggesting that we should only sell the family silver to someone who can pay for it out of their own pocket. I've no more interest in my club being a billionaire's private plaything than I have in it being a saddle horse for crap and dishonest debt deals.

For me, this is purely and exclusively about the absurdity of any pretence that these two clueless cowboys have actually done anything positive for the club since they took over. They didn't buy us players, they haven't got a plan for the stadium, they can't man-manage for shit, they're PR morons and on top of all of that they've saddled the club with onerous levels of debt in a structure that is very obviously retarded and could have been done much better by a range of other people, including DIC and even Parry and Moores. We have, in short, sold the family silver to two total prats for no benefit. Parry and Moores must burn in the eternal flames of hell for that, but they're not really the most pressing issue at the moment.

 

I say that's the last definitive word which pretty much sums up the whole thread. YNWA Matt

 

Standing in Awe

 

About sums it up. Thanx Matt. YNWA.

 

So who bought Mascherano for us then? His transfer means this is our biggest net spend ever, I think. Has the money for JM come from the owners?

 

the bank and they will want it back

 

And there you have it...yawwnnn.

 

A tricky one, because for a start we don't actually know how much money just changed hands. The figure of £18m that is being bandied about is composed of a range of elements, including wages over four years, so it's entirely possible that the amount spent on (in essence) buying off MSI was less than £10m, which is easily within the means of the club's normal operating budget.

If that's not the answer, then the money will have come out of the £33m left from the refinancing. Mascherano will, in effect, have been bought for us by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Please elaborate.

 

I think hes saying your anti american

 

That's certainly what it seems like, but I'd like to give him the chance to make a better fist of his first attempt to address me on the subject.

 

What’s the point? I can talk about how Liverpool is better off than then they were a year ago, but some individuals will have none of it. Their hatred for the owners is rooted so deeply they can see no good in any actions made by them. No matter what is said and done, Hicks and Gillette are the root of all failures and Rafa is the root of all that is good, when in reality there is blame to heap all around. So we can have this circular argument, but to what end? In your own words, “the absurdity of any pretense that these two clueless cowboys have actually done anything positive for the club since they took over”. So we can continue sowing the seeds of discontent or we can move forward as is. I for one, would prefer the latter. Torres, Masch, Skrtel and others have been signed, Rafa and the owners have made their amends, funding for the stadium has been secured, Rafa will get an extended contract, and the Stadium will be built. Or, we continue with empty forum debate, which I find tiring and reads out like a daily tabloid.

As for the anti-American cracks that are being said, calling them ‘clueless cowboy’s’, flying flags upside down (never got the correlation between this action & G&H?), f"ing Yanks, etc, etc. Well if the shoe fits… Mind you, it’s okay if you’re anti-American, just don’t try to tell me you’re not.