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

I never thought I would see the day that you would poke fun at yourself!



I need to rep you for this... Someone get him for me!

 

Got your back.

 

I can think of a dozen individuals off the top of my head that are worse than Hicks.

(Loria, Davis, Snyder, Bennett, Wirtz, Jacobs, Shinn, Glass, Stirling, Benson, Modell, Dolan)

 

You might want to have a chat with a Rangers fan. You make a good point with Al Davis, but you left off Bidwell.

 

Dolan's on there entirely for the Knicks.

You're right, Bidwell should be on there. Put him on and take off Snyder. At least Snyder tries to win, he's just stupid with spending his money.

 

William Clay Ford I would say tops the list. He makes Hicks seem like a saviour. He purchased the Lions sometime in the 60's I believe, and we've won ONE playoff game since then. And don't get me started on Matt Millen...

 

I dunno. It is kinda hard to top Bidwill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bidwill#As_owner_of_the_Cardinals

45 years of nothing on the lowest payroll in the NFL.

 

ditto

 

Fixed your post

 

Well you'd need to explain how and link those reasons to the Yanks in order for your point to be taken seriously. In the absence of that, "please elaborate" must be the watchword.

That's a misrepresentation not only of this thread, but all others like it. The consensus is that most of our season's travails trace back to multiple causes. The Yanks are just the biggest off-field factor. Your over-simplification of the point rather supports the view that you're not reading, you're just scanning for perceived anti-Americanism to get chippy about.

There are a range of factual errors in there, but more importantly, if the debate agues you, why stop by? Again, seems you're on the lookout for something specific. Whether it's there or not ...

You think what you want. I'm not, nor have I ever been, anti-American. I find that particular practice every bit as tedious as the American tendency to perceive it in every nuance of every statement made by someone non-American commenting on issues that are, in whatever way, American. Hicks and Gillett could be American, Australian or Austrian, they're still clueless cowboys (BTW, you may wish to investigate the common English usage of that term before accusing me of anti-Americanism ... ).

 

Liverpool owners reject £400m DIC takeover
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=513455&cc=5901

F@CK! I don't want this Hicks jackass involved with our club at all. What can people like me do to force him out? Boycott the club until he is gone?

Or should I just stick around for the slow death and remember the good times?

 

Now Hicks wants to buy out Gillette?

Good lord.

 

Who is the paragon of football club owners in the EPL? in World football? Is there such a thing? Is it better to have a fan-boy owner who makes a fool of himself by trying to be one of the boys (Simon Jordan or Mike Ashley or whatever his name is)? Is it better to have an egomaniac with a shady background who views the team as an extension of his ... uh ... super-yacht? Is it better to have a well-meaning, but dull individual who frets about the club and ends up being manipulated by a smooth talker administrator (Daniel Levy)? Arsenal have a nice set-up, but it is changing like crazy with Kroenke and Usmonov (or whatever his name is) threatening in the wings.

Everyone was happy under David Moores I guess. Or were they? There were still concerns about our ability to compete. He could not (apparently) line up the financing to do a Jack Walker for the club. Or to do a major ground development/redevelopment. Those have not been done at the top-level in the English game without a Mr. Moneybags type owner (or part-owner in the case of Arsenal). Whether those benefactors were merely lending their credit (Glazers, Hicks, etc) or were outright throwing money at the club (Abramovich, Levy at Spurs - is he spending or borrowing) ... it takes major lines of credit if nothing else.

Everyone romanticizes about the fan-owned scenario, but it did not work out too well for Manchester United when PLC made that at least possible and it involves a total circus every couple of years at clubs like Barcelona.

I think that local supporters of LFC ... given their cultural association with the club, their typical political orientation (tending towards anti-corporate) and their passion for the club that is different from those of us who are not Merseysiders ... are never going to be ideally satisfied with corporate style foreign ownership. Whether that is via DIC or the current Americans or anything in between. The preference would be for a dull person who gives a free hand to a popular manager and spends all his money on the club rather than giving even the appearance of holding any of the revenues or paying himself the smallest dividend.

Unfortunately, for Liverpool to compete on the same terms as Man Utd and Arsenal, commercial development of the club is unavoidable and it is going to attract commercial type people to undertake that project. Sorry - that is the case. The team has crossed the Rubicon (Ferry Across the Mersey).

There are no ideal alternatives to Hicks (and Gillett). There are only alternatives. Sometimes the devil you know IS better than the devil you don't know. Hicks can only improve with exposure to the club, its fans, its atmosphere. His son seems to be a well-meaning bloke. Hicks has the stubbornness (apparently) to stay the course. If nothing else, people like Glazer and Hicks provide a whipping boy who take the pressure off of SAF/Rafa and the team and let them get on with it. Rafa seems content with the support from higher up. He probably snickers a bit (at home in his wine) at the position that Parry finds himself in and he will (shrewdly) insinuate himself further into Hicks' confidence. The players will be happy to see the wages going up and the likes of Skrtal, Masch, Torres, etc coming into the club. They will like the slick new Melwood. The academy is in good shape.

... fade to Red

 

_SC touched on the "part-time" benefactor at Arsenal.

Was/is there not some mysterious benefactor paying/supplementing the wages at Arsenal to keep the higher priced players around the club? I can't place where I heard it, but I remember hearing something to that tilt. If so, did there wages throughout the latter 90s and 00s surpass ours?

Can anyone add to that?

 

_SC is on a roll -- I can't give him rep for this very good post but he surely deserves it

 

A great way of putting the recent stuff surrounding us in perspective. Nice post, repped.

 

The biggest problem preventing Hicks from stabilizing the club over the next few years is his reliance on debt to do what he needs to get done. He is looking to raise money (200m+) to buy out Gillette, then he is going need another 300m + to build the stadium, on top of the 350m of debt they have already taken on. It seems a tall order and leaves little margin for error.

DIC on the other hand, while they also will be leveraged, they are far more likely be able to withstand any bumps in the road, without having to sacrifice the investment in the team, which what ultimately we all care about.

 

Seemingly their wage bill is much higher than ours, if one cares to wade through the the financial reports, which is another oft-ignored aspect of the premiership, i.e. it's not just the transfer fees but also the wage bill that reflcets quality.

Have to admire _SC intrepidness and , indeed, he makes some valid points. I wonder, though, if he is not missing the central issue underpinning some our uneasiness over Hicks & Gillete. Already we're seemingly saddled with interest repayments obligations to the tune of £28 million. What happens, for example, if we fail to qualify for the champions league? We already have an example of Leeds United in football. And one only needs to look at the current credit crunch to know what happens when you financialy miscalculate.

These are genuine concerns which are being conflated with supposed anti-Americanism. That's an oversimplification.

 

Does anyone seriously think Hicks does not know about what happened to Leeds? What would it do to his ability to raise funds if Kop Holdings defaulted on its loans? Do you think banks would extend him credit for his other significant investments? Is there any reason that he wants to see LFC's overall value go down?

Like Moores he is using a combination of debt and club revenue to finance spending. If anything, the debt makes him less reliant on club revenues for cash flow. For instance, he does not necessarily turn UCL TV money straight back into transfer fees for the following season.

On the other hand - there is a high probability that Hicks/Kop Holdings is willing to bear some of the debt load in anticipation of higher revenues/profits from a new stadium. The way this debt is structured ... Hicks is taking a longer-range view of this investment.

This guy knows that the valuation of Liverpool only increases as its asset base and ability to generate operating profits increases. He has analyzed what debt levels it can bear and he is tailoring his financing package to meet that. As in the case of Manchester United, significant interest payments can be offset if the loan funds are used to invest in revenue/profit generating resources.

 

Steve Gibson is a good owner.

Vladimir Romanov is a very bad owner.

 

There are certainly mixed reactions to Gibson. Plenty of 'Boro fans stay home because they cannot stand the desultory style the team plays. Gibson has raised the profile of the club some (they managed the league cup win) but the team has no prospects of great advancement in the future. Gibson would be incapable (financially) of raising 'Boro to a higher standard in the league unless there was a 'perfect storm' scenario with their admittedly solid academy.

Moores was no worse than Gibson ... but he is the first to admit that he could not move LFC forward commercially. It was beyond his financial capability.

Think of an analogy in terms of players. LFC fans love a player like Jay Spearing. He has heart. He has talent. He has tremendous will to win. On the other hand, the chances of his ever being an elite player capable of leading a team (or playing more than a squad role) on an EPL champion or UCL champion are low. That is not an indictment of Spearing. It just means that LFC would be foolish not to sign someone with less local appeal, more mercenary concerns, etc. We don't always sign players who bleed for LFC to play for the club. They have to be elite players and we hope they will have the club's best interest in mind only slightly after their own best interest.

The same is true of managers. We could find plenty of other high quality football minds with a much closer and nearer connection to the club than Rafa Benitez. But we need an elite class manager. So we find someone who (originally) did not even speak the language that is integral to the culture of the club.

Why are owners any different? It would be nice if there was a Scouse billionaire who would take over the team and (hopefully with a bit more integrity than Abramovich) supplement the already impressive turnover of the club with his largesse to boost the club to the pinnacle of English football AND either redevelop Anfield/develop a new, more modern and revenue-producing stadium - all while cheering the team on without stepping on the technical staff's collective toes.

Of course this is mostly a pipe-dream. You cannot even settle for the 'best of the rest' like Steve Morgan if they are only going to give you the (ownership) quality of a Jay Spearing. We need owners who have the financial and commercial wherewithal to push the team on through.

Some would say that this attitude represents a philistine attitude towards the culture and history of the club. But Matt was the first to call me on over-valuing the contribution that past players/staff of the club can make towards helping the modern players/staff perform up to LFC's historical standards. And I rather think the same is true (if not moreso) when discussing the appropriate caliber of person to own the club.

Finally, Hicks may be a buffoon. But think of it this way. He is like a player who was brought in and did not settle early at all. He was not terrible in delivering results, but he unsettled the dressing room and did not get off on the right foot with the fans. Now he is starting to address some of those failings and while the jury is still out - it looks like he is going to help the side a lot. Gillett (who the local fans are more willing to bear with), on the other hand, did not make much of a fuss when he arrived but he is not getting much playing time either. In fact, he has stated that he might be looking for a new club after all.

We give players and even managers time to settle in. Consider giving Hicks the benefit of the doubt ... his emotional attachment to the club is obviously growing and he is not thinking utterly with his pocket-book, as he could have walked away significantly wealthier if he just sold up to DIC. But he believes owning the club will be more rewarding and/or more lucrative in the long-term. That notion has to be predicated on sporting success and commercial growth of the club. Nothing else makes sense.

 

I should have posted before that I agree it is an oversimplification to suggest anti-americanism is the sole driver in the lack of acceptence of Hicks. Obviously Gillett is American and has not been considered as objectionable. Hicks did make some truly unfortunate and thoughtless statements and he did not show much discretion or consideration early on.

I am more ambivalent about the Klinnsman thing (though it was stupid to publicly admit it). There is always brinkmanship going on with big dog owners, presidents and managers. That has been the case in the past at Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Ajax, Juventus, Milan, Inter ...

Also ... there are financial risks to be sure. I have no doubt that American sports business tycoons are acknowledging as much by diversifying their holdings to include English teams due to the favorable currency variance. Owning LFC is a substantial infllation hedge that suggests althemore that Hicks is in it for the long term.

 

i was under the impression that gillett was behind the klinsmann debacle. i might have misread that, but if that's true why doesn't he get more flack for that? as far as i can tell the major charges against hicks and gillett are the initial spat with rafa, the refinancing, their understanding of the history and tradition, and the question of their commitment to the club. please, if there are others, let me know.

however, at this point it seems that the initial spat was more of a misunderstanding and that now rafa is on good terms with the owners. i also feel like if it were me and all i wanted was to make money i would sell now and get out while i still could. it can't be a lot of fun to have the kop cursing your name and our son being hassled. if he's not commited to the club and to winning, why not sell now and move on? and sure, perhaps they made asses of themselves at first with their ignorance, but that can easily be amended and it seems that at least hicks is trying to learn what it means to be a red. as for the refinancing, i'm neither an economist or a billionaire businessman so i can't really weigh in, but how can we be sure that DIC will be any better? also, haven't they said they would get rid of our beloved manager?

i am not going to presume to know very much, mostly because the majority of my knowledge on the subject comes from espn soccernet and icliverpool.co.uk, but assuming what i have said is true and logical, i figure it would be best for gillett to get the hell out because i don't think he has the commitment we need and because he was behind undermining rafa. i think that the initial (media fueled?) feud left an unforgiveably bad taste in many people's mouths and that the situation would not seem so dire if that could be forgotten (as it seems rafa has done). i say stick with the devil, if you want to call hicks that, you know and not the devil you don't.

and hey, i don't know about y'all, but when i think of dubai making money pops in my head before passionate sports fans. but who knows, that might not even matter in the long run as long as we keep winning.

as i said before, if i'm wrong then please tell me why.

 

You are probably right. But, then again, maybe not. And the way in which Hicks is going about it seems to indicate not. I do not need to poin out to you the are fundamental differences with America sports.

Talking of costing and sensitivity analysis, I once worked with an American subsidiary of an Australian company (BHP-Utah, it was called) on a platinum-group metals project in Zimbabwe, in the early 1990s. Seemingly a very good project, well costed and all the technical and financial feasibility done by some frightfully clever chaps at a cost of over US$7 million. Over US$250 million was then invested in a large underground operation and some seriously sharp mining and mineral processing engineers were recruited (at above world market salaries). Yet in two years the project had collapsed amid recriminations at head office and a certain amount of amusement from the locals. The top BHP management (globally) was eventually sacked and BHP itself saved from entire ruin by being taken over by a South African company called Billiton. The problem? Well, they had udgeted on a production rate of 180 000 tonnes of ore per month. Poor ground control conditions (to which a local geologist would have alerted them) meant they were struggling to hoist 50 000 tonnes.

The debt which Hicks & Co. are hoisting on the club looks mightily onerous to me. And this is even before we have started the excavations for the stadium. There is precious litle evidence that he is willing to bear the burden, apart from the £30 million pounds he has put up. Kop Holdings is a stand-alone entity and if the whole thing goes tits-up, his losses will be limited to that. In an era of bad investments and dodgy financial judgements, I'm sure his over-sight will be forgiven by the banks who have not been paragons of prudence themsleves.

Of course, I could be entirely wrong. For example we win number 19 and the champions league next year. The new TV deal also kicks in and increased revenue streams therefrom will be an added boost. Yet, we ignore the lesson of the past and tell-tale warning signs at our peril. The delay in building the stadium does not bode well, whatever the spin.