http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=300443&cc=5739 'The board note that the Bridgemere Proposal, at £1.750 per share, implies a current value of £61million for the entire club, which is a substantial discount to the value placed on the club by the board. 'The board have therefore concluded that the Bridgemere Proposal as currently constituted is not attractive.
I hope the reason we are turning down this bid is because it wasn't enough money. I just hope Mr Moores isn't turning away money just because of his personal gripe against Morgan. The sad thing is that we still havn't turned down the bid from the Thai Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said today that he will turn his attention to a new Premiership club if Liverpool decline his bid. His interest obviously isn't in Liverpool FC, he just want to put his money into football in general. The idea the Thai Prime Minister is a "Liverpool fan" is also ridiculous. I read that when Man United visitied Thailand he declared himself a Scum supporter. I hope Morgan comes back with a new bid that meets the expectations of the board. An investment of this size would certainly help us in the transfer market this summer.
cuz morgan wants a seat at the board. i dont know why that is a big deal but it is. and morgan had problems with GH and moores didnt like that before...i would like to see some money go into the club though...if we are to compete than this is the starting point.
One needs to read the language carefully, as I'm sure it was carefully constructed. No decisions on either offer, Morgans opening bid turned down "as currently constructed". Discusions to be held --- perhaps the same money with a lesser share of the firm. Shares have traded as high as 4000 pounds so they are within their fiduciary responsibilities to turn the offer down "as currently constituted". Lets see how this plays out. I do think that Morgan's entrance and public negative reaction to Shinawantra will cause the board to act very carefully. The brand name of Liverpool Football Club must be protected. If they cheese off too many supporters they will have difficulty with ticket sales but much more importantly the move for the Stanley Park ground. That will require public support to keep the local council in line behind it. It ain't over 'til its over.
Morgan says that Liverpool's response makes no sense: http://www.skysports.com/skysports/article/0,,31-1135146,00.html
I am glad they turned it down. There was a knee jerk reaction amongst the fans locally to accept whatever Morgan offered out of fear of the Thai deal -- whhich should be avoided at all costs. With that in mind, Morgan low-balled his bid, devaluing the price quite considerably. Now he is backing away from that evaluation saying it is additional money. I bet he comes back with a different proposal that both increases the value of the club and more importantly spells out in more detail the exact tenets of his proposal. His denials on the ground sharing have not convinced many.
I've been wandering around a lot of other football chat thingies and too many of the posters don't care who's money it is, they just want to spend it. One posters line was (and he was serious) "Keep politics out of sport, if he want's us to use his money........blah blah, blah." Well, actually I said "blah blah, blah." But you know what I mean...!
Not much of a choice, eh? A dodgy brickie and a authoritarian shyster from the other side of the world with not a shred of real interest in Liverpool Football Club. We don't need money at all costs.
But what club can afford to turn down $100M+ (dollars)? There is an 'end game' to be played, but I will be greatly surprised if neither bid is ultimately accepted.
It's not like we are desperate for money. Why take an offer from either of them when other offers might be out there. Parry has also been negotiating with bidders in the USA too. I don't think a hasty decision is necessary, we don't need the money tomorrow. Yeh it would be nice to have the money to fund the new stadium, but it is not absolutley necessary. This is Liverpool Football Club, integrity, morality and high ethical standards come into play. We are not MUFC and we are not Leeds. If the money is dodgy or comes with too many strings, reject it. We need to be able to keep "holding our heads high through the storm" not defending ourselves about where the money has come from or to enter into a foolish groundshare.
Exactly. If money's the issue, then I'd rather have the team, well, earn it on the field, qualify for the group stage in Champions League. I realize that won't get us $100 million, but I'd rather have $10 million that is more or less clean than $100 million that is completely tainted.
That surprises me. I thought that LFC fans as a whole weren't like that. Otherwise, they would have become ManU or Real fans by now. Are these sentiments just from a bunch of loudmouth III formers on Daddy's internet, or has the feeling of the "man on the street" shifted to "accept money at all costs"? I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former, and I would be SERIOUSLY disappointed if it was the latter. 95% of LFC fans I've run into at pubs, matches, and elsewhere have been reasonabally knowledgeable about the game and the club, and minimally reactionary (as sports fans go). On aggregate, I can't say that about the supporters of any other football club, domestic or foreign. If LFC fans are willing to sink the ship for a few extra pesos, perhaps it's just another unpleasant zeitgeist in the modern football world.
I think the reaction went like this: 1. Great, money from Thailand! We can sell loads of shirts over there (suckers!) 2. Oh Amnesty International don't like him, screw that. 3. Oh here comes our saviour Morgan. He's been a Red's fan all his life 4. And there's that Thai fella holding a Man U shirt, screw him 5. Accept Morgan bid without reading it 6. Hey wait a minute he only valued the club at 61 million. That's a bit low isn't it? 7. Well Bruno Cheyrou and Salif Diao are great players, we don't need any new money Well all but number 7 ring true. It's a thought process and in the age of the Internet we get fed information quickly and don't take the time to examine it and digest it before deciding whether a bid is worthwhile. It shows on the one hand how desperate we are for success, to compete with the money that Chelsea and Man U have. And on the other, what a moral dilemma we face. Slow down, not all of this has to be done at broadband Internet speed. Slow careful deliberation is needed. Not knee jerk fan reaction to a few Internet leaked stories.
I think you're correct most of the stuff I read was from the quick fix "Foolier must go" "Heskey is a donkey " bunch the real fans seem to recoil from the 'in your face" confrontation. One nice person was later called a 'twat' by "Fellow" Liverpool supporters. For thinking the PM of Thailand....Here's his post. "many of those stories are ****************, most others are exaggerated. Shinawatra will be good for our club." As I said he was called unpleasant names.
Hear, hear! Very smart. Chelsea get tons of money from a Russian billionaire, and now we must do the same. ManU are the WalMart of football, we must do the same. I'm no expert on the business end of the EPL, but Arsenal have done quite well I'd say [/understatement], and kept their integrity more or less intact--at least relative to the other two. If there's a model we should puruse, maybe it's that. Or maybe, just maybe, we should figure out our own way of doing things . . . hmmmm . . . that's novel. And if we need a bit more time to figure out a "Liverpool solution" that reflects both the aspirations and the values of the Club, then, well, it takes a bit more time. I'm willing to be patient--though I know I may be in the minority on this point. ----
While I admire the ‘nobility’ of the posters here regarding this issue, I wonder whether ‘Joe Scouser’ has the same perspective. From what I have read on these boards over the last year or so and read/heard elsewhere, most Liverpool fans are not happy that the club appears to have slipped to the ‘high mid-table, qualifying for Europe’ status, and not the ‘Fight for the Premiership title and Champions League every year’ status of ManU, Arsenal, and now, Chelsea. I believe the consternation regarding the Thai’s money that I have read here may not be shared by the majority of Liverpool fans, either. After all, I don’t hear any complaining from Chelsea fans over the originations of Roman’s money, only the gleeful speculations over who he is going to buy next. “Just win, baby” is the famous Al Davis motto, and it seems to hold true no matter who you are or who you root for. I would like to see one, just one, sports franchise that will not ‘bend over’ for the almighty buck, but fear that in spite of fans like yourselves, it’s a pipedream. As for needing more time to find “Liverpool’s own way of doing things…’ as Red Knight postulated, just how much time can be wasted before the general view of the stature of the club slips to the point that it is no longer attractive to the high-quality transfer targets which we must have to re-attain the highest levels of the sport? The ‘Houllier years’ can not be viewed as a positive step back toward elite status for the club, but would appear to have cemented Liverpool’s place in the second tier of the Prem. Money is the single most important factor in moving up the ladder in the world of sports. After all, (and continuing the Chelsea comparison) just how much talent evaluation is required when your club has the financial power to buy whoever they want, and not worry about over-spending on the wrong player – you can’t miss often when buying at the top.
'Joe Scouser' wants to see energy and progression in their club. Emphasis remains on "club". The Morgan bid was cleverly presented to manipulate obvious, justified and lasting doubts about LFC becoming the plaything of a man who could not, in a recent interview, name more than two Liverpool players (he managed Owen and, rather bizarrely, Milan Baros). That the Morgan bid is fundamentally preferable to the Thai bid does not make it a good bid per se though. Fact is, Morgan undervalued the club. Or, to put it another way, played the emotive fan card in a bid to get his hands on a very large slice of the club for peanuts. So discard any notions you have about Morgan being face-value material. The Thai bid is viewed with disgust/trepidation/scorn by the vast majority of Anfield regulars (read the multitude of reports on the banners around the ground this past Saturday). We don't want their money. End of. We are NOT Chelsea fans. And, if life has any inherant justice at all, we never will be. As to the rest of it, we have enough money without a further injection to comfortably compete in the Premier League. Fact. The Abramovitch fable has made it received wisdom that only expenditure on that level can raise a club currently surfing the lower levels of their presumed place in life to where they want to be. It has also made gormless largesse a primary condition for "attracting top players". As if Chelski's millions make their name, the resonance of their club characteristic (or their "brand" if you absolutely must be all modern and savvy) somehow more potent in the transfer market. Nonsense. A club has one of two things in abundance - name or money. Liverpool, thankfully, have one in abundance and the other in comfortable plentitude. We are a well-run club with manageable debts, consistent turnover and, as things stand, an impending cash injection of some £20m due to us in August from passage into the Champions League proper. We are also Liverpool Football Club. I would much prefer to have a "lesser" player who comes to Liverpool because the name resonates with the footballer inside him than be Chelsea and have an apparently motiveless hoard of Juan Sebastian Veron's sitting around on their arses for £90,000 a week each. If you can find such a rare creature, tell a Chelsea fan with some remnant of belief in his club as a club that you "cannot go wrong buying at the top". Money can't buy you love, as they say. Let's all relax on the money issue. Football is still a game you win through having good players implement a good system in a cohesive, committed manner. THAT should be the focus of our work this summer and beyond. Just ask newly-crowned Spanish champions Valencia. Or their German counterparts, Werder Bremen. Or, of course, our very own Arsenal, new immortals and peerless conquerors of the money that oozes out of every brick and pummice at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge.
Thanks, Matt. Here's hoping the board takes their cue from the fans and turns away the Thai as well as Morgan, though I'm waiting to see what Morgan's second bid will look like?
This was his second bid. Remember earlier in the year he made a bid too. His third bid will be interesting. If he uses the correct price value of the club it might be tough to turn him down again. Of course it looks as though we will have Heskey money to spend And Newcastle want 50M for Woodgate, "are they having a laugh?"
These are the salient facts: Liverpool shares currently cost a shade over £4,000 each. There are a smidgeon over 35,000 of them available. So for argument's sake, it's 35000 x 4,000. Which equals £140,000,000. One hundred and forty million of Her Madge's finest and shiniest Sovs. End of. Anyone wishing to buy into the club, let alone into the boardroom, must work with those figures. That's the baseline, the starting point. THEN we can talk about who does what best and has whose interests closest to heart.