- by Matt Narvaez, writing from Brevard County
The event that triggered the majority owner of the Boston Red Sox to fly to England and purchase the storied Reds of Liverpool was the April 2010 refinancing of loans for Tom Hicks and George Gillett by the Royal Bank of Scotland. The key part of the refinance agreement was at the end of 6 months Hicks and Gillett would find new owners. Two possible suitors showed interest in August. Nothing came of it and Liverpool Football club started their season with the ownership of the team still very much in the air. Hicks and Gillett all the while perused other refinancing options elsewhere so they can maintain the club.
Two months into the season the club had no new owners and fans have been protesting at almost every match. The contention between the supporters of LFC and the owners are at an all time high. Videos, websites, and countless tweets all calling for Hicks and Gillett to sell the club as soon as possible (among other things not so pleasant). To make matters worse the clubs performance on the pitch was abysmal. A loss to division 2 team Northampton Town at the start of the Carling Cup being one of the true low points. Northampton Town now sits 1 point away from relegation in their division.
Hope sprang on Monday, October 4th as news started spreading that two new potential owners were going to place bids. One the bids coming from Asia, and one originating from the US. The latter fact I am sure at least caused some consternation with die hard reds fans already thoroughly at odds with Liverpool current “YANK” owners. More details funneled through slowly and it appeared that the US bid was from New England Sports Ventures. NESV is one of the premier sports ownership groups whose assets include the Boston Red Sox and Roush Fenway Racing, The other would turn out to be from Peter Lim a Singapore Billionaire.
The Following two weeks were a business lawyers dream come true, and a sports fan worst nightmare. After agreeing to sell the club to NESV the club Hicks and Gillett try to get rid of the board members that voted in favor of it. RBS, Liverpool FC, and NESV take them to court in a breach of contract saying that they could not stop the sale or try to force out board members that were in favor of it. After a legal victory in the British high court that seemed to almost guarantee the sale of the club to the Americans, talk that the board once reconvened could actually revote and give the club to Peter Lim. NESV said they had a binding contract that would stop that from happening. That turned out to be the least of their worries because the afternoon of the 13th Hicks and Gillett obtained a restraining order preventing the sale of the club. Hope once again seemed lost and administration and the 9 points that would result from it seemed all the more possible.
Information that had anything to do with the sale now was at a total premium. Updates were constantly coming from both England and Texas. Josh Imhoff followers on twitter swelled almost 100 fold because he was going to be in the Texas courthouse Oct 14th and 15th. Speculation was rampant on what would happen once again the British high court ruled against Hicks and Gillett setting up an injunction to stop them from preventing any sale. They appeared in court the next day dissolving the RTO and thus allowing NSEV to complete the purchase. Hours later Henry announced that NESV were officially the owners of Liverpool Football Club and the Hicks and Gillett era had ended.
Ok the circus is over. The clowns that helped bring down one of the legendary clubs in all of soccer are in the rearview mirror. What happens now will be to the upmost importance for all Reds fans across the globe. After the embarrassment that was the 2 – 0 loss in front of their new owners; the Reds find themselves in spot from the bottom of the table. Instead of battling for even a Europa league birth, the boys from Anfield find themselves in a relegation battle. Tom Werner has already said the embattled coach Roy Hodgson's job is safe. The play on the pitch has had to been affected by the ownership issues, but that is done now. The players have looked lost and very much underpowered. The transfers brought in have helped little and club stalwarts Fernando Torres, Jamie Carragher, and Steven Gerrard have shown very little of what made them kings of the Kop.
The next few months will be telling. How the players and coaches perform now that the off field distractions have been removed will be under much scrutiny. While I agree this is not a championship club, it’s far from a bottom of the table club either. LFC have players to move back up so they aren’t worried come the end of the season. And much to my chagrin (being a Tampa Bay rays fan and son of Bronx raised Yankee fan) Henry has shown he will put the right people in place to make the sports decisions to produce a winner. The next transfer window should see the reds add the necessary pieces to start the building back up of the club. I think Anfield will be fixed up much like Fenway was. It’s just as much if not more an icon, and in this economy it just makes more sense to refurbish it. And all reds supporters every hope that it’s home to champs league matches and trophy raising once again. And in my opinion they have at least the owners to make that happen.
