By Martin Samuel
Change? What change: Everton fans taunt Liverpool
players over the club's ownership trials
Had George Gillett and Tom
Hicks Takeover not been allowed...
Demonstrations in the streets
around Anfield, a storm of cyber-protests and phone-in
fury.
A YouTube video in which
obstructing such a noble business venture...
Richard Scudamore would have
been vilified, accused of standing in the way of progress, of
favouring Manchester United and Chelsea, of needlessly obstructing
the next stage in the evolution of Liverpool
Football
Club...
So what would have happened if the Premier
League had done as asked, with all that lovely hindsight, and
stopped Tom Hicks and George Gillett buying Liverpool?
Pandemonium, that is what.
Rancour. Demonstrations in the streets around
Anfield, a storm of cyber-protests and phone-in
fury.
Maybe a YouTube video in which obstructing such
a noble business venture would be compared to seeing family members
sexually assaulted, maybe with your eyes fixed open like Alex in A
Clockwork Orange.
Do not kid yourselves that Richard Scudamore,
the Premier League chief executive, or his pernickety legal team
would have been held up as heroes.
They would have been vilified, accused of
standing in the way of progress, of favouring Manchester United and
Chelsea, of needlessly obstructing the next stage in the evolution
of Liverpool Football Club.
There are a lot of what Americans call
wiseacres around now, talking as if all true Kopites saw through
Hicks and Gillett’s bluster from the start, but were betrayed by
the inertia of the authorities.
They, presumably, were not the ones with the
star-spangled banners, chanting ‘USA, USA’
on the day the damn Yankees rode into town.
The High Court heard that the former owners
made impossible promises. Yet the Premier League were reliant on
the same bold pronouncements as the club and its
fans.
Early intervention: George Gillett (left) and Tom
Hicks were hailed as saviours when they arrived, but what if the
Premier league had refused their takeover bid?
Hindsight: Liverpool fans protest outside the High
Court - yet they welcomed Hicks and Gillette with open
arms
‘A great step
forward,’ said former chairman David Moores.
‘Great for Liverpool, our supporters and shareholders,’
proclaimed former chief executive Rick Parry.
‘We have purchased the club
with no debt on the club,’ announced Gillett.
His partner, Hicks, meanwhile,
was owner of the Texas Rangers baseball franchise when they won the
American League West Division in 1998 and 1999 and made Alex
Rodriguez the highest paid player in the game.
So what were the Premier
League to do? They had no more information other than what was
placed in front of them by the previous board and the new
owners.
What would their reason be for
blocking the takeover? A feeling in their water? Feminine
intuition? Bad mojo? A hunch?
New England Sports Ventures
are full of promises now. John Henry, the new owner, spoke
poetically of rising at dawn to catch the light on a deserted
Anfield and the locals lapped it up.
Again, he seemed genuine
enough.
Are you new here? Liverpool's new owners
(left-right) John W. Henry, Joe Januszewski and Thomas Werner speak
with manager Roy Hodgson
He also talked more
practically of investment and redevelopment and the supporters are
foursquare behind both. Yet who knows what the future
holds?
The
supporters of West Ham United were once very excited about their
Icelandic owners; Alexandre Gaydamak was considered a dream come
true at Portsmouth.
Now
imagine if the Premier League refused to take John Henry’s
statements at face value and intervened in the NESV
takeover.
Imagine
if they placed a fresh raft of stipulations on the deal to ensure
no repeat of the Hicks-Gillett fiasco.
Suppose
they said that, to protect the interests of clubs and their
supporters, all takeovers from here could not be made with borrowed
capital, minimising the risk of leverage in the future.
And
imagine if Henry studied this red tape with mounting horror, turned
tail and fled?
Would
Scudamore be saluted for his rigorous stance?
Would Liverpool supporters concede that nothing
can be guaranteed, that NESV look to be going increasingly cold on
building a new stadium and that a feature of their ownership of the
Boston Red Sox has been a steep rise in ticket prices?
Would
they buffalo.
Liverpool fans would be up in arms. There
is the contradiction: everyone wants the Premier League to be
football’s policeman, but only once a crime is
committed.
Now we
know Hicks and Gillett are charlatans, the cry is that they should
have been stopped.
At the
time, however, all Liverpool supporters coveted was a wad of
dollar bills.
Only
the names have changed. If the NESV takeover goes wrong, the blame
will land at the Premier League’s door.
Why
didn’t they do something?
The
reality is, unless laws are being broken, what is there to
do?
Scudamore can only hope
that Liverpool’s current chairman is a better
judge of character than the last one was.
After George Gillett and Tom Hicks had
taken over...
Former chairman
David Moores ‘A great step forward’
‘Great for
Liverpool, our supporters and shareholders,’
proclaimed former chief executive Rick Parry.
‘We have purchased the club with no debt
on the club,’ announced Gillett.
Hicks, was owner
of the Texas Rangers baseball franchise when they won the American
League West Division in 1998 and 1999 and made Alex Rodriguez the
highest paid player in the game.
New England Sports
Ventures are full of promises now...
They have "that
experienced" in Sports business...
We have a history of
winning and we will do whatever it takes...
The club is
purchased and free
of debts announced Henry.
Are Liverpool going for
another full circle?
