LIVERPOOL TAKEOVER
Yet when the official documentation from Hicks and
Gillett came out, it was clear that they, too, had borrowed
to buy Liverpool. And while the Glazers had had to find
£272m of their own money to buy United, Liverpool’s pair
had borrowed the entire purchase price, £174.1m, from the
RoyalBank ofScotland. At £5,000 for each share, Moores,
who owned 51.5 per cent of Liverpool, was sent a cheque
for £89.6m. Nevertheless, Parry, who worked closely with
the former chairman, said it was “the worst day of David’s
life” because all he ever wanted was to run Liverpool.
Hicks and Gillett borrowed a further £11m to pay legal
and professional fees on the takeover, £45m to absorb the
debts Liverpool were carrying at the time, and £68m for
initial work to keep the stadium project alive and to give
the club some money to spend on transfers. That made
a grand total borrowing of £298m.
The fans were delighted when, last summer, manager
Rafael Benitez signed top-class Spanish striker Fernando
Torres for £26.5m and talented young Dutch winger Ryan
Babel for £11.5m. Hicks and Gillett were praised for “putting
their hands in their pockets”. In fact, the money was drawn
down from that £68m they had borrowed from the bank.
The £298m was loaned for just a year, so towards the end
of 2007 Hicks and Gillett were negotiating to refinance it on
new terms. By then the first discontent was rumbling through
the Kop, after Benitez was given a public dressing down by
Hicks about asking for more money to buy players. Having
delivered the club the 2005 Champions League and 2006
FA Cup with smaller financial muscle than that wielded by
Liverpool’s big three rivals, Benitez is loved by the supporters,
who are desperate for a long-serving manager to believe in,
another cherished tenet of the Liverpool way. Some fans were
unhappy enough to mount a “Rafa stays” demonstration.
InJanuary, unease turned into outright hostility when Hicks,
out of the blue, told theLiverpool Echonewspaper that during
the period he and Gillett were having “communication issues”
with Benitez, they had talked toJurgen Klinsmann about
taking on the manager’s job.
To an extent, there is not a great deal to object to in that.Klinsmann was between jobs so they were not tapping him up.
Whatever the fans feel, the owners could feel some justification
for not wanting to be publicly arm-twisted by Benitez before
theJanuary transfer window, as he had re-stocked so amply
back in the summer.
And – whisper it – Benitez has not quite had the golden
touch of late that he once appeared to possess. There is
a feeling that while cup competitions focus his mind and
tactical decision-making acutely, he is over-worrying for
routine Premier League games, shuffling his teams too
much, and Liverpool’s results are not worthy of his players.
Yet Hicks’ mistake, which he did acknowledge, was to talk
about the Klinsmann approach in public. Benitez now wears
the look of a dead man walking, it was widely felt to be deeply
unfair to him, and it was a long distance from the Liverpool way
of keeping fallouts in the family.
The outrage hit Hicks and Gillett just as they were finalising the
refinancing of their loan and, suddenly, DIC’s name resurfaced
with strong rumours that it was interested in buying out the pair.
The company never confirmed it officially, but it was known tohave made an approach, which was rebuffed by Hicks, who still
believes his sporting investment will take him into the money.CLUB PAYING INTEREST
OnJanuary 25, the announcement was made. Kop Football
Holdings, Hicks and Gillett’s company which owns Liverpool, had
borrowed £350m to refinance the previous £298m, including
further money to spend on the stadium. The announcement was
not clear in itself, but a spokesperson for Hicks subsequently
made it clear that the club themselves will be paying the interest
on that loan, which still includes the £174m Hicks and Gillett
borrowed to take over the club. It is a little difficult to see how
that differs at all from what the Glazers did, and still Liverpool
have a new stadium to build. They are expected to have to
borrow another £300m to see that project through.
So, the search for new owners has delivered to Liverpool
Messrs Hicks and Gillett, who, in12 months, have travelled
from much-loved American uncles to hate figures, and £350m
borrowed, before a patch of Stanley Park has been dug up.
Can this modern football fable really have a happy ending?Benitezwasgivenapublicdressingdown
by Hicks about asking for more money
Under pressure...
Liverpool boss
Rafa Benitez46 THE PREM ERA