Liverpool to be bought by Boston Red Sox owners

TheNamelessWonder

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MUAHAHAHHAAA

We shall take over your football teams, and call them soccer! And sell Bud Light at your games, and call it beer!

America shall colonize England!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/9064599.stm said:
Liverpool are to be sold to the owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team.

But the takeover by the New England Sports Ventures requires resolution of a legal dispute with the Reds' American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The Premier League hopes to "complete all the necessary processes by Friday 8 October so the sale can proceed".

Hicks and Gillett tried to sack managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre in a last-ditch bid to keep control of the club.

In an attempt to block any sale and regain control of the crisis-hit club, Liverpool's much-criticised owners tried to replace Purslow and Ayre with Hicks's son, Mack Hicks, and Lori Kay McCutcheon, a vice president at Hicks Holdings.

Hicks and Gillett are understood to have argued that the club's English directors were not acting in the best interests of Liverpool and that the NESV bid - as well another undisclosed offer from Asia - "dramatically undervalued the club".

Purslow, Ayre and chairman Martin Broughton are now consulting lawyers over whether they can resist the owners' attempts to replace them and force through a sale.

"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," said Broughton, who has met with representative from NESV over the past few weeks.

NESV is thought to be offering about £300m for the club, enough to pay back the £240m of loans and £40m of fees owed to Royal Bank of Scotland, which must be settled by 15 October else a penalty fee of £60m will be due.

The legal dispute over board membership will be a key part of whether the sale actually goes ahead, although with an 15 October deadline looming for the RBS debt to be refinanced, advantage seems to be with the prospective owners rather than incumbents.

"The legal battle is critical," said Wyn Grant, professor of football economics at Warwick University. "If the NESV deal doesn't go through RBS may ultimately intervene.

"I think RBS would be prepared to extend the loans for a short while to allow the sale to go through without putting the club into administration but if it's all held up too much they might just pull the plug on Hicks and Gillett, meaning the club would be available for purchase anyway."

If the 15 October date were to pass without a sale, the bank would have the option of extending the deadline once again, or calling it in and taking control of the club and forcing a sale, with BBC business editor Robert Peston suggesting the club could still enter administration before any sale is concluded.

However, the Premier League says it is happy with the business plan of the NESV and has confirmed that the club would not suffer a nine-point penalty if it were to enter administration as the club would remain fully solvent.

"The aim of the regulations is primarily to capture clubs who have gone into insolvency. This is manifestly not the case with Liverpool Football Club," a Premier League source told PA Sport.

"For example, last year West Ham's Icelandic owners went into administration but that did not lead to any Premier League action as the club itself was solvent."

The prospect of administration looms because NESV's valuation falls well short of the £600m that Hicks and Gillett are thought to be demanding.

Liverpool, who are currently undergoing their worst start to a season in 57 years, were put up for sale by Hicks and Gillett in April with debts of £351.4m.

They initially sought an asking price of about £800m, a figure they subsequently dropped to £600m.

In August, there were abortive bids from Hong Kong businessman Kenny Huang while a consortium fronted by Syrian businessman Yahya Kirdi also expressed an interest.

The owners paid £174.1m to buy the club in 2007, while also agreeing to take on the club's debt of £44.8m.

Prospective new owner NESV already boasts a portfolio that includes of companies including the Boston Red Sox, New England Sports Network, Fenway Sports Group and Rousch Fenway Racing.

It is partly owned by futures and foreign exchange trading advisor John W. Henry who has an estimated fortune of £540m.

Henry, 61, made his fortune in hedge funds, but has used it to indulge his sporting interests, most famously with the Boston Red Sox baseball team, but also in the NASCAR motorsport series.

The self-made multi-millionaire from Illinois does not have the serious money of the Premier League's wealthiest owners but he does have an excellent track record of success with his teams.

After owning a number of minor league baseball teams, and briefly controlling the Florida Marlins, Henry and his partners in New England Sports Ventures, Tom Werner and the New York Times Company, bought the Red Sox in 2002.

Within two years of Henry's acquisition their 86-year wait to win the World Series title came to an end. Three years later, they won the title again.

Professor Rogan Taylor of Liverpool University who is also a founder member of ShareLiverpoolFC added: "Henry took over a club that was in an old stadium and that only had 30,000 in it. Every other bidder for club was talking about how they would build a huge new stadium.

"But John Henry simply refurbished the existing one, spent about £100m doing it, and has made a business that I think is second only to the New York outfit."

Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has backed the takeover by NESV and hopes the ownership issue can be resolved quickly.

"Everyone knows it'll be a good thing for the club," he told the Liverpool website.

"Hopefully, it will be sorted sooner rather than later and we can start looking forward on the pitch and start improving results, which is what we need to do."

Many fans have become increasingly outraged at the current owners' running of a club which is said to be currently £237.4m in debt, and their failure to carry through promises to build a new stadium.

Liverpool fans' group "The Spirit of Shankly" has met the news with "cautious optimism" but members admit they are desperate to see the back of their current owners.

"We need to rid the club of Gillett and Hicks," James McKenna, who helps run Spirit of Shankly, told BBC Sport.

"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.

"We have not been involved in discussions with the potential new owners about fans ownership but hope to be involved. The supporters are very angry and believe that any new owners should listen to our views."
 

Dimitar

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This thread is fail tbh. The previous owners were also american.
 

Twigley

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Yup and they destroyed the club.
Like they are doing to Manchester United.

More americans to all these teams please!!! :D
 

tobapopalos

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Yeah I think you're a bit behind the times if you think it's funny that an American might buy a football team. United are owned by the Glazers, Villa are owned by Randy Lerner, and Liverpool is/was owned by Hicks and Gillett. Nothing new there. Only difference is that Hicks and Gillett were morons whereas Randy Lerner seems like a good guy, and although the Glazers have put United in like £700m debt it doesn't seem to be a big deal. Our revenue far exceeds that of Liverpool.
 

Dimitar

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And it will continue to be that way since the new owners apparently want to renew Anfield instead of building the new stadium which was promised 5 years ago.
 

LAFiN

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Red Sox are fail! They didn't even make the playoffs this season! Give us better owners!
 

tobapopalos

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And it will continue to be that way since the new owners apparently want to renew Anfield instead of building the new stadium which was promised 5 years ago.

In all honesty, even though I hate Liverpool and everything associated with it, I think it would be a shame if they moved out of Anfield. It is the home of the club and has so much history. I know I'd be pretty upset if United moved out of Old Trafford just to go to a bigger stadium.
 

bluehen55

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tbf any American sports fan knows there is a huge difference between Tom Hicks and John Henry, have to think this means better times ahead for Liverpool.
 

Dimitar

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And it will continue to be that way since the new owners apparently want to renew Anfield instead of building the new stadium which was promised 5 years ago.

In all honesty, even though I hate Liverpool and everything associated with it, I think it would be a shame if they moved out of Anfield. It is the home of the club and has so much history. I know I'd be pretty upset if United moved out of Old Trafford just to go to a bigger stadium.

As legendary as Anfield is, the club has to move on. Its capacity is barely above 45,000. That's smaller than quite a few of the other stadia in the Premier league. Tickets provide a large part of a club's income and Liverpool has enough fans to be able to fill an 100,000 stadium each game. If I'm correct the plans for Stanley Park is to have a capacity of 71,000 which will increase the club's profit, which is vital for a team like Liverpool imo. A 50% increase of ticket sales, overtime, might solve the club's financial state (which is sadly quite bad even after the sale of the club)
 

[yoyo]

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And it will continue to be that way since the new owners apparently want to renew Anfield instead of building the new stadium which was promised 5 years ago.

In all honesty, even though I hate Liverpool and everything associated with it, I think it would be a shame if they moved out of Anfield. It is the home of the club and has so much history. I know I'd be pretty upset if United moved out of Old Trafford just to go to a bigger stadium.

As legendary as Anfield is, the club has to move on. Its capacity is barely above 45,000. That's smaller than quite a few of the other stadia in the Premier league. Tickets provide a large part of a club's income and Liverpool has enough fans to be able to fill an 100,000 stadium each game. If I'm correct the plans for Stanley Park is to have a capacity of 71,000 which will increase the club's profit, which is vital for a team like Liverpool imo. A 50% increase of ticket sales, overtime, might solve the club's financial state (which is sadly quite bad even after the sale of the club)

LOL bigger stadium. i can only hope you know how it works in the United States? in the UK, is it the same?

the owner plops down maybe 0.0000002 % of actual cost, the rest is paid for through bonds, taxes etc. in the end the final tally is

owner 0.0000002% of cost
common people 99.9999998% of cost

of course, ticket prices will be doubled, the common peoples seats in that stadium will be smaller to get as much seats into a footprint that will not be much bigger than the original footprint of seats, it will have trippled the private boxes that will be mostly empty come game day. consessions will double. and very soon it is too expensive to buy season tickets or go to every game. the owners will complain again and get another bigger, better stadium.

but wait!, ooops! there is not enough room in your town for a bigger venue, we need to move to a new city that can support our great team. we are moving unless the city and the common people can shell out more money and level some more land for us LOL LOL

this has been the american way since the 1980's :|
 

Dimitar

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This isn't handegg or baseball, football fans go there to support their teams and a slight price rise(noone would double the prices) won't change that.

Also the owners don't really decide what the new stadium will be like. The owners can't do **** if the board of directors votes against it
 

bluehen55

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Thats not how its always handled in America, and its not at all how Henry handled things with the Boston Red Sox. Instead of building a new "state-of-the-art" stadium like many called for, he renovated a great, historic old stadium, added some seats (yes some very expensive) and ended up with a team that sold out every game for years. He brought in a lot more revenue to the team, put a lot more money back into the roster, and ended up winning two championships with a team that hadn't one in 86 years. Just have to hope he can help pull off similar magic again.
 

Twigley

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All liverpool have left is their history and anfield ... And Gerrard.

Liverpool need to think about buying some good players rather then a bunch of useless overpaid hyped up failures.

The fact they didn't get a point deduction is a complete farse too. The premier league just don't want the league to look worse than it currently is. Wonder who's lining their pockets.

The people I feel sorry for are the fans. Like in Leeds, football is a way of llife for a lot of people. Prices will go up, fans won't be able to afford the prices and more prawn sandwich eaters will be going.

Hopefully manchester united goes the same way as liverpool. They are taking the complete piss woith their debts. Not gonna be able to sell a ronaldo every season.


Can you tell I'm bitter about leeds being in 1/3 debt then liverpool, 1/10 the debt of manchester yet going into administration with a 10 point then 15 point deduction.


Faggots
 

Dimitar

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Liverpool never went into administration, why should they get points deducted?
 
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