It’s been a traumatic twelve months for football. Last summer the sport gasped as Real Madrid and Manchester City spent excessive amounts to entice the best players to their magnificent stadiums. We saw prize-asset Cristiano Ronaldo depart the Premiership for sunnier climates, before the division was thrown into the public eye for the wrong reasons, as the credit crunch hit hard and Portsmouth became the first team in English top flight history to enter administration. But nothing could really have foreseen the fiasco that has taken centre stage in the North West, as Liverpool’s internal hierarchy hit boiling point, and fuelled a bitter conflict as the club was divided.
Although the top story on the news this week stresses the magnificent survival of those miners who luckily escaped from deep depths in Chile, it is the chilly scene at Anfield that is attracting as much outside interest, and how a club with its terrific stature can be throw in equally as deep problems.
As recently as 2007, football’s European governing body, UEFA, slandered Liverpool’s fans as ‘the worse in Europe’, but surely even those supporters merit sympathy for the sudden downfall of their famous side. The crisis, although it was obviously not labelled as such way back then, began in the same year as the governing body’s evil words; as during 2007 Tom Hicks and George Gillett, two American businessmen with sporting backgrounds, became owners of the club.
Rick Parry’s sale to the ambitious Texans was made because he believed the move would take the club to the next level. Three months after the takeover- and following no concrete financial support, as there was no transfer window in this time- the club reached the final of Champions League, a feat that was never matched during Hicks and Gillett’s less than fruitful reign.
The club purchased striker Fernando Torres from Athletico Madrid for an audacious fee around £30million in summer 2007 to demonstrate their ambitious intentions; incidentally the club hasn’t won a major trophy since this purchase, despite Torres setting the world alight on many occasions with his vast goal scoring tally. The huge fee of the transfer has certainly placed a nail in the Americans’ coffin, but the Spanish magician is not the main culprit in the demise of the illustrious club.
As the recession hit numerous businesses hard throughout the world, Liverpool too began to mourn a sudden loss of finance, and during 2010 Hicks and Gillett were pushed towards the exit door. The club agreed a deal which would refinance the side, but it pushed Royal Bank of Scotland into the driving seat, at which point- Hicks and Gillett will argue- things subsequently took a turn for the worse.
June 2010 saw the first major twist in the ongoing saga following Martin Broughton and his team’s arrival, Hicks and Gillett continued to battle with financial strain along with added pressure, and once again attempted to refinance the deal they had with the club. The Royal Bank of Scotland squadron, which slightly outnumbered the pairing of the Americans, blocked the deal. The global recession showing its effects, Hicks and Gillett were in financial ruin and the bank was showing no sympathy.
A change of manager could have prompted a revival; it merely showed deeper problems as Rafa Benitez was dismissed after the owners had their own revolt against the Spaniard. The current Inter boss said in September, "The last year at Liverpool I had directors who knew nothing about soccer and you couldn't talk about soccer with them." A fierce critic who is unlikely to shy away from media frenzy, Benitez was forced to assemble what has been regarded as the two-man team at Anfield with Steven Gerrard and Torres the only prize assets. Fulham boss Roy Hodgson replaced Benitez, despite the imminent sale of the club. He was a manager with no previous experience of getting a club into the ‘top four’. He also had to contend with the previous boss’s stars returning from awful performances at the World Cup.
The sacking of Benitez and hiring of Hodgson no doubt took another chunk from the American owners’ wallets, another flawed decision, as the new owners may not have their style of football on the pitch, and therefore Hodgson’s job clearly not stable. Hodgson was immediately under pressure to deliver instant results, which with another man’s squad was far from a given.
As the takeover edged closer to its epic climax, October saw the evil Hicks and Gillett attempting to be very counter-productive and difficult to RBS’ plan to sell the club, yet the business was still edging closer to a sale.
October 6th brought change. Royal Bank Of Scotland, and subsequently Liverpool FC, had found a buyer. New England Sports Ventures, the owner of the Boston Red Sox baseball team had agreed a deal. Martin Broughton then stated a disapproving view on Hicks and Gillett: “I am only disappointed that the owners have tried everything to prevent the deal from happening and that we need to go through legal proceedings in order to complete the sale,”. The quotes coming out of the football club as the sale became concluded were more of relief than looking to the future. The loyal Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher said: “"Everyone knows it'll be a good thing for the club," James McKenna, who runs Spirit of Shankly boldly stated: "We need to rid the club of Gillett and Hicks. It does not matter where they come from as long as they understand Liverpool Football Club. That was the problem with Gillett and Hick, they never really got Liverpool.”
It proved that the owners did more harm than good. But unfortunately for Liverpool’s supporters this wasn’t the end of the tale. On October 7th the sale- believed to be in the region of £300 million- was sent to the courts to decide whether Hicks and Gillett had the grounds to sack Royal Bank of Scotland’s Purslow and Ayre. The court case was due to take place the following Tuesday. This brought with it the very real threat of administration, despite this Purslow stated: "I'm completely focused on making sure the sale completes. I'm not contemplating administration and nobody should be."
By Friday 15th Hicks and Gillett were gone. John Henry had become the new owner of the North West giants. A new era dawned. But a week of anti-climaxes and an embarrassing public affair left red faces by the Mersey. Roy Hodgson spoke of how a cloud had been lifted above the Anfield Kop. “"It's a very good day for the club," Hodgson said just before the deal was confirmed. "It's a relief...it's been a very difficult couple of weeks. There's no doubt a cloud has been lifted from the football club today."
As for the former owners, they wouldn’t die down. Tom Hicks stated the deal was an “epic swindle”. They even tried taking the club to court again, this time in Texas, but the English court stated whatever the outcome was of that case, the ruling wouldn’t over rule the decisions made in London. The Americans had been foolish not only with their ruling of the club during their tenure, but their actions during the sale prospect. It’s safe to say it’s not just a relief to Liverpool Football Club that they are now away from the club, but also away from the beautiful game as a whole.
