Football Season 2010/2011

[wwe]

Liverpool Football Club tonight issued the following press statement: The Board of Directors have received two excellent financial offers to buy the Club that would repay all its long-term debt. A Board meeting was called today to review these bids and approve a sale. Shortly prior to the meeting, the owners - Tom Hicks and George Gillett - sought to remove Managing Director Christian Purslow and Commercial Director Ian Ayre from the Board, seeking to replace them with Mack Hicks and Lori Kay McCutheon

[Uncle Peter]

Originally Posted by wwe

Liverpool Football Club tonight issued the following press statement: The Board of Directors have received two excellent financial offers to buy the Club that would repay all its long-term debt. A Board meeting was called today to review these bids and approve a sale. Shortly prior to the meeting, the owners - Tom Hicks and George Gillett - sought to remove Managing Director Christian Purslow and Commercial Director Ian Ayre from the Board, seeking to replace them with Mack Hicks and Lori Kay McCutheon

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/lates...fc-statement-3

gloves off, more lawyers to fatten up

[Uncle Peter]

Originally Posted by Uncle Peter

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/lates...fc-statement-3

gloves off, more lawyers to fatten up

and the winning bid is: New England Sports Ventures

John W Henry (respected hedge fund magnate), Tom Werner (Cosby Show) and Les Otten (NY Times).

when the lawyers have finished at the trough that is.

(sorry should have edited my own post, it's been a long week already)

Looks like it's going to be a fun day. Lots of confusion going on over the bid with three of the board approving the sale but it is unknown if they can actually do so without the American owners, who look set to challenge it.

[sherer]

still not sure why these Americans want to own the club. With a hedge fund magnate it seems they are replacing bad with bad and sounds like he is just after making money.

[Russ]

.....which sums up all the foreign 'sugar daddies' who have appeared in the game over the last 10 years.

Originally Posted by sherer

still not sure why these Americans want to own the club. With a hedge fund magnate it seems they are replacing bad with bad and sounds like he is just after making money.

His reputation with other teams is positive though.

[Uncle Peter]

Court case is scheduled for next week to determine whether or not the board acted in a proper manner. Having said that Hicks and Gillet signed articles stating that they would not interfere in the sale process and that Broughton has the final say so they really don't have a leg to stand on. To suggest that the purported £300M undervalues the club at this stage is ludicrous! even £200M is pushing it.

[sherer]

Originally Posted by Damien

His reputation with other teams is positive though.

this guy does seem better than most actually, just read a bit more info on him. Seems he is interested in sports and so likes to own sports teams as a hobby.

Wish the PL rules would ban people who are just owning clubs to make a profit

Originally Posted by Russ

.....which sums up all the foreign 'sugar daddies' who have appeared in the game over the last 10 years.

... which in turn are a symptom of the massive financial bubble the English Premier League exists in. It is ultimately unsustainable but for the time being there are still enough idiots prepared to shovel money down the pit to keep it going.

I can see this running on until RBS forces the club into insolvency. The Redsox will then get it, but not before the Premiership docks 9 points off Liverpool's already measly total. Somehow I doubt even this will do much to halt the money-go-round.

[Uncle Peter]

Originally Posted by Chris

... which in turn are a symptom of the massive financial bubble the English Premier League exists in. It is ultimately unsustainable but for the time being there are still enough idiots prepared to shovel money down the pit to keep it going.

I can see this running on until RBS forces the club into insolvency. The Redsox will then get it, but not before the Premiership docks 9 points off Liverpool's already measly total. Somehow I doubt even this will do much to halt the money-go-round.

It's looking unlikely that administration is anything other than the bank's trump card at this stage. To quote Martin Broughton earlier today when asked about Tom Hicks attempt to replace two of the non owner board members in favour of the sale:

"We don't think it was valid to do it. Essentially when I took the role they gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings."

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/lates...n-takeover-q-a

Even if, by some unimaginable reason the judgement went against the board, by this stage RBS would be within their rights to force Kop Holdings (the club's holding entity and debtor in question) into administration.

Following some of the journo twitters this morning it seems that there are noises coming from the Premier League that they won't apply the 9 point penalty because the club is still a solvent, trading entity. I expect this little snippet of information has been circulated to put the frighteners on the two parasites, ie: they have no options left. They're surrounded now and the snipers are on the roof but the war isn't over yet.

[Julian]

Originally Posted by Chris

... which in turn are a symptom of the massive financial bubble the English Premier League exists in. It is ultimately unsustainable but for the time being there are still enough idiots prepared to shovel money down the pit to keep it going.
I can see this running on until RBS forces the club into insolvency. The Redsox will then get it, but not before the Premiership docks 9 points off Liverpool's already measly total. Somehow I doubt even this will do much to halt the money-go-round.

I'm waiting for the result of the court action being taken by the landlady in THIS ARTICLE.

Success for her would be fantastic and would stick one up the premier league and sky.

I wonder why there hasn't been more publicity about it...

[sherer]

Originally Posted by Julian

I'm waiting for the result of the court action being taken by the landlady in THIS ARTICLE.

Success for her would be fantastic and would stick one up the premier league and sky.

I wonder why there hasn't been more publicity about it...

don't forget a lot of papers, the red tops mainly, are owned by News Copr which is Sky so why would they report on this.

[TheDaddy]

Hicks and Gillett are understood to have argued that the club's English directors were not acting in the best interests of Liverpool



---------- Post added at 16:50 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I liked this post from another site, given the current wave of doom sweeping over the club just one game in

10 reasons why we will be relegated if we lose to Bolton.

(1) The last time we lost our opening two games (2000-01) we were relegated (well, OK, we weren't, but I don't see why facts should get in the way of a good point, well made.)

(2) No team with 0 points after 2 games has gone on to avoid relegation.

Except Bolton, Blackburn and Everton last year

Spurs, Wigan and Pompey in 2008-9

Spurs, Boro and Bolton in 2007-8

Wigan and Pompey in 2005-6

Again, mere facts, and in no way relevant.

(3) The transfer window will be closed and we won't be able to make any more signings. (OK, OK, so there'll still be 10 days to go, but no one will be making any signings that close to the end of the transfer window...)

(4) Our new signings have turned out to be flops. Barrera, who ought to be match fit and used to the pace of the Prem after a couple of half matches and a brief run out looked anything but ready, and there's very little chance he will improve as he gets more match time. And as for that Hitzlsperger, well he may as well have been out injured for all the difference he made...

(5) Bolton are not in any way, shape or form one of our bogey sides, and the fact that they have managed to beat us 6 games in a row means that we're obviously better than them and 'should be beating sides like this'.

(6) In the seasons when we have lost to Bolton at the Boleyn we have been reelgated (again, not true, but I'm sure you get the picture...)

(7) No other team in the PL will have made such a poor start, and all the other teams in the PL will go on to amass 50 points or more, leaving us with about 6.

(8) With only 36 games left, we would have absolutely no hope of making up ground on those teams so far ahead of us.

(9) Gollivan will sack Grant if we lose, and The Scottish manager will be given the job, with Ian Dowie and Glen Roeder as his assistants.

(10) We have never previously made a bad start to a PL season and then gone on to avoid relegation (apart from when we have, obviously.)

Now, I know some of you optimistic types will try to argue me out of it, but I know I am right, and I know that King WHUFC will back me up on this.

Saturday is our season defining game.

Lose it, and we may as well say goodbye to the PL.

You know I'm talking (non) sense...

Follow up post

1) We are bottom of the table. So it's obvious.

2) With only 31 games to go we are now 1 point away from safety, but with our poor GD that is effectively 2. There's no way we can make that up in the time available.

3) We are three points worse off than the 10th placed team - which just goes to show what a poor team we are, and how off the pace we are.

4) We are showing terrible form. We have dropped 4 out of 9 points in our last three games.

5) We have conceded a goal in two of our last three games, which shows how poor our defence is.

6) We can't even beat Fulham, a team 4 points ahead of us who are unbeaten this season. What hope is there?

7) No team who has been bottom going into the 2nd Interantional break has avoided relegation. (Well, OK, some have, but we won't.)

8) Grant's obsession with signing former Pompey players is really hurting us. OK, so we haven't signed Ben Haim, and he is only back up, but that Piquionne - I mean, what's the point? He's only managed THREE goals in our last 4 games. We should have signed Sandra Redknapp. And as for the rest of them - well, all right so there aren't any, but that's not the point...

9) There is no team spirit or desire, and no one is playing for the shirt. We saw with that limp display against Spurs, and the way they gave up after going down a goal agaisnt Fulham that they are a bunch of quitters. A mate of mine saw Grant wandering around the BML stand at half-time on Saturday, and asked him where he was going. Grant said he'd lost the dressing room

10) We haven't been reduced to using Johnny 'where am I?' Spector since the Man Utd game (EDIT (c) Hammertime32) - which shows how poor our side must be.

Not quite as good but still worth posting

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Not so clever Trevor

Steve McClaren could manage the England national team again, according to the Football Association's director of football development Trevor Brooking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9066019.stm


Finally, I've just seen the Liverpool players outside my house playing football with a hedgehog, I was disgusted and just as I picked the phone up to ring the RSPCA the hedgehog went one nil up.....

[Niles Crane]

On a lighter note, this Hertha Berlin player is obviously pretty desperate to get his hands on a cup this season: