Bogman

7.56/10

Not if the banks are running the show.

riceism

Raff out roud

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has agreed to extend its loans to Liverpool Football Club for “enough” time to secure a sale of the Premier League side, its new chairman has just told me. The appointment of Martin Broughton, who is also chairman of British Airways, was confirmed this morning, alongside that of Barclays Capital, which as I revealed last weekend, has been given a mandate to sell the club. Broughton told me there would be “no geographic restrictions” during the search for a buyer, which is hardly surprising given that the sources of capital for football club takeovers are now predominantly Middle Eastern and Asian. And the club’s new chairman also told me that a bid involving supporters would be treated exactly the same as any other proposal. “It has got to be the right owner who’s going to build the new stadium with the right amount of leverage which is not encumbering the club too much. If the fans can get together to deliver that promise as well, fine, they will be included in the process.” That may leave the door open for a Liverpudlian version of the Red Knights who are assembling a bid for Manchester United, although Broughton added: “I don’t think it’s important that the fans have a direct stake in the club.” Of course, the fact that Broughton has been appointed as Liverpool’s chairman means that Tom Hicks and George Gillett have stepped down as co-chairmen. That will be a relief to many fans of the Anfield club, as will Broughton’s confidence that a buyer will be found within a matter of months. “RBS has given time for the process to operate. We don’t want to be in a position where deadlines are looming and therefore handing negotiating leverage to a potential buyer,” he told me. The one thing Broughton would not talk about is a price-tag. And if his own team, Chelsea, should play Liverpool during his tenure as chairman, who would he support? “I shall probably be unavailable,” he said. http://blogs.news.sky.com/kleinman/Post:a1c5c680-7dda-42a3-bfd1-76e012916292

That.

f*** me, it's christmas, easter and me birthday today. Happy f***in new year people, the king is dead, long live the king. Off for a breakfast celebrationry beer.

Thank god for the recession. I think.

Agreed. I just wish half our fan base would put as much effort into getting rid of our owners as they do knifing up Rafa.

http://www.imscouting.com/global-news-article/Agent-claims-mystery-Chinese-investor-key-to-Benitezs-Liverpool-future/7118/ The agent of Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez has claimed that a Chinese investor wants to buy the club on condition that the Spaniard remains at Anfield. Benitez's Anfield future has long been the subject of speculation and the Liverpool manager has recently spoken candidly of his frustration at the lack of funds available to strengthen his squad. Juventus have been strongly rumoured to have offered Benitez the chance to take over as coach of the Turin-based club. The Spaniard is also said to be in the running to take over as Real Madrid coach in the summer. Benitez's agent, Manuel Garcia Quillon commented in Spanish daily AS, "For now, Madrid has not moved, but Juve will not wait for Benitez forever." Quillon also said that whether Benitez remains at Liverpool is "subject to fluctuations in their financial situation." Intriguingly, he added that a Chinese investor is interested in buying the club, but had conditioned the bid on Benitez remaining as Liverpool coach. Quillon continued, "The Chinese have an interest and called Rafa and told him that their condition for buying the club is that he remains coach." Liverpool's unpopular American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett are actively looking for a buyer, but the process may take some time.

Why things can only get better for Liverpool fans following Hicks and Gillett's decision to sell-up By David Maddock Published 13:00 13/04/10 (2) Recommend (5) OK, so it's as dry as an AA social club, but the financial news coming out of Anfield this week has massive implications for the future of Liverpool. While I'm not yet suggesting there is cause for mass celebrations just yet, anyone with the best interests of this great club at heart can at least start to believe there is now a chance that the chaos and sheer embarrassment that has become a byword for Liverpool in the past three years may be ending. Tom Hicks and George Gillett will announce formally this week that they will sell the whole of the club. Not part, as previously planned, not 50 per cent, not only one of the selling, but every share, from both owners. Barclays Capital have been appointed to conduct the search for new owners, just to confirm how serious they are. They will also announce that they are standing down as joint chairmen, to be replaced by Martin Broughton, a serious and respected business leader who is chairman of British Airways and former President of the Confederation of British Industry. There will be a further statement explaining that the make-up of the boardroom at Anfield will also change, effectively taking away the control of the Americans, and allowing the club's executive officers, lead by Christian Purslow, to run the show without interference. Finally, there is also likely to be an announcement that funds will be made available in the summer - potentially up to £50million - as Barclays Capital, one of the biggest and most respected investment banks in the world offer an interim refinancing package to stabilise the club in the period they need to find new owners. I told you it was dry, and I know that many readers will already be finding their eyes glazing over. But let me put it more simply for you. From the end of this week, the Yanks are out. It could take some months, perhaps even a year or more, to find new owners, but it will happen. And in the meantime, they will not be allowed to interfere in the running of the club, which will instead by directed by respected business professionals, who are at the very top of their field. It would be natural for fans to be sceptical. I for one, won't truly believe the Americans have gone until the new owner is sitting at a table in the Anfield trophy room, introducing him or herself. But there IS real hope for optimism. Why? Because of the credibility of the people who will be unveiled this week to lead Liverpool towards a brighter future. Martin Broughton, Barclays Capital and Christian Purslow would not risk their reputation trying to prop up a discredited, embarrassing regime. They would only agree to come into Anfield if they can control the situation, and influence the eventual endgame. That is why Hicks and Gillett will stand down as chairmen immediately, and the structure of the boardroom will change, to remove the farcical situation of each warring owner effectively having the right to veto the other, hence nothing gets done. From now, they can be outvoted, giving control to the new chairman and his Managing Director. Now, Purslow will steer the ship, backed by an effective financial team of Ian Ayre and Philip Nash who have already brought in massive new revenues to the club, with Broughton overseeing the whole affair. After paying off existing loans, funds generated from the potential Barclays' refinancing will be directed towards team rebuilding, aimed at stimulating success on the pitch to make the club more attractive to eventual buyers. I know many of you believe it is too good be to be true, and will wonder why the Americans would hand over control of their club to someone else, but the answer is simple. They know it is the best option for them. They have been trying to find a partner to come into Liverpool with them for the past 12 months, but their regime is so discredited no one is truly interested. Likewise, they can't sell, because basically no one believes their valuation is accurate, because of the mess they have made at Anfield. They need to raise funds because of pressure from their current bankers, but can't. That has raised the real prospect of them losing money, if they have to sell a minority stake in the club quickly, and then clinging on to power at Anfield in an attempt to recoup their losses by holding out for exaggerated profits. This way, the club is run properly by people with pristine reputations, and backed by a business in BarCap that has real credibility. It will allow Hicks and Gillett to eventually get out without having to conduct a fire sale, salvaging some of the profits they intended to make when they bought Liverpool (which obviously will anger many fans). But importantly, it will allow Liverpool to progress, and be run properly without the interference that has proved so disastrous. Funding is already in place to begin the build of the new stadium, and with stability, that can finally happen, especially with a new owner on the horizon. It won't be a quick fix, because it will take time to nurse Liverpool's reputation back to health, and to find the buyers who will take the club forward. But at this moment in time, it is by far the best option for the club after three years of mistrust and mistakes. Purslow and his team have already illustrated that they can take Liverpool to their true level, because they have brought in sponsorship deals that have surpassed similar ones at Manchester United. Barcap and Broughton recognise that, and appreciate that the club is still, potentially, one of the biggest in the world, and without the Americans around, it can fulfill that potential. So no dancing in the streets just yet, but at least if you are a Liverpool fan you can allow yourself the small hope that things will only get better from now on.

Is Martin O'Neill all he is cracked up to be? - Gabriele Marcotti I have to confess I don't understand the O'Neill phenomenon. Maybe it's my fault. I don't think he plays outstanding, innovative football. I do think he sets out his teams in a well-organised counter-attacking system and generally gets them to execute his game plan very well. But so do others. I don't think he's particularly shrewd or creative in the transfer market. By my reckoning, since arriving at Villa Park, his club have spent more money than any other team in the Premier League (£88 million in net terms) with the exception of Manchester City. And, after all that expense, Villa will probably finish somewhere between fifth and seventh which basically equates to the club punching its weight. Take a quick look at history. O'Neill finished 11th in his first season and sixth the last two years. The much maligned David O'Leary took Villa to fifth place in 2003-04. That was his first season at the club and he took over a side which had finished just three points above relegation the previous year. In the seven seasons between 1995 and 2002, Villa finished fourth, fifth, seventh, sixth, sixth, eighth and eighth, while winning the League Cup in 1996. The guys managing Villa in those years were Brian Little and John Gregory (with a bit of Graham Taylor thrown in). Neither Little nor Gregory (let alone O'Leary) are spoken of in the same glowing terms as O'Neill. And yet they achieved what they achieved without the massive investment from Randy Lerner, but with the rather more cautious Doug Ellis at the helm. I fail to see what in his results at Aston Villa suggests he's any different from his peers who achieved comparable results, like Harry Redknapp (with a comparable budget) or David Moyes (with a smaller budget and smaller wage bill). Further muddying the waters - and, again, it's probably just me - is the fact that I don't understand what his transfer strategy is. Since arriving at Villa he has only bought players from British clubs, with three exceptions: John Carew, reserve goalkeeper Brad Guzan and Moustapha Salifou (who is 26 and has yet to start a league game). It has been a pattern throughout his career. At Celtic, in five seasons he brought in three players from abroad: Bobo Balde and Joos Valgaeren who were pretty good and Michael Herbet, who never played a single league game for the club. Now, you obviously don't need to buy players from abroad to be a good manager. But the fact that he has bought just six in nearly nine seasons is a bit of a head-scratcher. Unless he's somehow prejudiced against them (and I don't think he is), it suggests his scouting network and decision-making maybe isn't what it should be. Instead, he's bought British players, mostly young ones, for which he's been widely praised. But again, it's not as if he's unearthed gems, signing some teenage left back from Colchester who then goes on to become the next Stuart Pearce or an underrated striker from Reading whose career he helps get back on track. Most of his British signings are fairly obvious ones - well-known players at market prices, whether it's Stewart Downing or Ashley Young or James Milner. There's no great nous or imagination there, it's basically a case of bringing in brand names. And paying accordingly for the privilege. He's supposed to be some kind of guru to young players, but, in fact, he's given league debuts to just four home-grown players in four seasons. One of them, Isaiah Osbourne, is now on loan at Middlesbrough. The other three - Ciaran Clark, Marc Albrighton and Nathan Delfouneso - have between them started a single league game this season and played less than 300 minutes between them. He's meant to be methodical and clear-thinking, but then he signed three quarters of his starting back four (Stephen Warnock, Richard Dunne and James Collins) in the last hours of the transfer window. Which actually doesn't suggest much of a plan at all. What you're left with is his results. Which, as stated above, are good but not exceptional. Three SPL titltes, three Scottish FA Cups and a League Cup in five years. But, of course, that was at Celtic. Gordon Strachan, his successor, also won three league titles, as well as a Scottish FA Cup and two League Cups, and he did it in four years. You don't see Strachan mentioned in the same breath as Sir Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough do you? And, yes, he did take Celtic to the Uefa Cup final. (But then Steve McClaren also took Middlesbrough to a Uefa Cup final). O'Neill strikes me, ultimately, as someone who does the job to the level you would expect, given the resources at his disposal. Nothing less, nothing more. When you have a net spend of £88 million over four years, a top six finish is the least you can expect. We'll never know, of course, but one would imagine that, say, David Moyes might have attained comparable heights if he'd had £88 million to spend, instead of the roughly £20 million net spend he's had to work with since O'Neill's arrival. Who knows? Maybe some of the folks further down the food chain would have as well. Heck, maybe even Brian Little and John Gregory. Would he have been more successful than, say Rafa Benitez at Liverpool or Wenger at Arsenal? Maybe, maybe not. But, while I can imagine an argument for why he would do worse, I have yet to hear a cogent argument for why he would definitely have done better. (I'm all ears, BTW. Though, of course, I accept that it's mere conjecture, we'll probably never know). One more thing. Lansley's article mentions suggestions that O'Neill is under pressure because Lerner, Villa's owner, is unwilling to make further large investments in the club. If that's the case, it's more than understandable. You spend big, you get the players you want and then you work on making them play well together as a team. O'Neill has succeeded in doing so with Young and Milner, now it's up to him to make it work with the others. But now comes the real test of whether he really is a special manager or just another "good" manager who suceeeds when he's awash with money. Now we'll find out what he can do. Provided, of course, the unconfirmed rumours are wholly false and he does decide to stick around, even with a switched off tap.

Aye, that's a sobering thought for a wednesday morn.

It's like a reoccuring nightmare. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil. 1. We've the worst custodians in the world. 2. We're being linked with Martin O'Neil.

..........or lets not. I mean O'Neil. Really? REALLY?

no, no and thrice no. someone adding up 2 + 2 and equalling 89562562562556256656956.0122555856562656356566266656568965696669R will not, and should not come anywhere near our club, except as an opposing manager.

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Seconded. Fair do's to Roy, but no disrespect, he ain't a Liverpool manager, full stop. Period. Zip.

which is a damning inditement of where this club is

Rhone, O'Hicks and Muse rode into Corinthians, shot the sheriff, then pranced on out of there.

More black holes and revelations, I think you'll find.

There's a blog on Sky about Muse joining the party now...........................off to go get it. Things are taking a turd for the worse. Piff, paff, poof Exclusive: Buyout Tycoon Lined Up For Liverpool Bid Mark Kleinman March 19, 2010 3:59 PM * Recommend post (0) I have learned that John Muse, the American private equity tycoon, is to play a leading role in an offer to buy a 40 per cent stake in Liverpool Football Club. Muse has been lined up to co-invest alongside Rhone Capital, a US investment firm which last week tabled the first formal proposal to inject new funds into the Premier League club. What I'm not clear about is how much money Muse, who is now chairman of HM Capital Partners, another private equity group, would invest under the Rhone proposal, which would see it paying about £110m in exchange for a 40 per cent stake. The news is nonetheless significant because Muse was one of the founders of Hicks Muse Tate & Furst, the buyout firm where Tom Hicks, one of Liverpool's current co-owners, also made his name and fortune. Hicks and Muse are said by people who know them to have had an at times uneasy relationship, although it seems logical to assume that they are on decent terms now. After all, Hicks and George Gillett, the current shareholders, will continue to collectively own a majority of the equity in the club even if the terms of Rhone's bid would hand it effective control. Christian Purslow, the highly-regarded managing director of Liverpool, has set an Easter deadline for serious offers. There has been plenty of speculative interest from around the world but I'd be surprised if there were more than three concrete proposals for Purslow to consider at that stage. Liverpool had some decent news last night when they progressed to the quarter-finals of the Europa League, suggesting they may yet salvage some silverware from a dismal season. Whether the news off the pitch during the next two months remains unclear. Rhone and Muse both declined to comment today.

Bump & thud. Revealed: the motives driving Rhone’s “non-billionaire” Liverpool biddersBy Nick Harris 17 March 2010 The men behind the private equity firm bidding for a stake in Liverpool are not billionaires, and are not intending to invest their own fortunes, such as they are, in the deal, sportingintelligence can reveal. The Rhone Group, an international company with offices in New York, London, Paris and Milan, tabled a bid at the weekend for somewhere* between £100m and £118.5m for an initial 40 per cent stake in Liverpool. The firm was founded in 1997 by two US bankers, Robert Agostinelli and Steven Langman, and it has been widely – and erroneously – reported that they are billionaires with £3bn to spend who will pour massive resources into Liverpool if their investment plan comes to fruition. That is untrue. As the Spirit of Shankly fans’ group has today written to Liverpool’s managing director, Christian Purslow, asking for clarification of Rhone’s “bid”, sportingintelligence can reveal: Agostinelli and Langman are “far from billionaires”, and neither will invest “anything, or anything significant” from their own funds into Liverpool. The London arm of the Rhone Group (Rhone Group LLP) had an annual turnover in its most recent accounts of just £5.9m. While the firm “manages” total funds of £3bn globally, the emphasis is on “manages.” Rhone doesn’t “own” this money; it takes fees from moving its clients’ cash between investments. Rhone’s offer for a stake in Liverpool has been made on behalf of a group of an as-yet unnamed investors who have other funds under management by Rhone in a variety of other ventures. These are “disinterested” parties who believe that injecting their cash into Liverpool now, when it is a “distressed” business, will lead to a cash profit in the medium term. In other words, they want to invest when Liverpool is vulnerable, help to stabilise the finances and create an environment in which commercial lenders will fund the new stadium, then get out at a profit. Nobody disputes Liverpool’s massive potential as a money-making machine when the new stadium is built. Getting there is the hard part, and Rhone’s executives see an upside in helping. Rhone’s investors are looking at Liverpool as “just another business deal”. Rhone’s other recent investments have included, for example, financing for the clothes firm Quiksilver, putting money into the toy chain Early Learning Centre, and part-owning the aluminium company Almatis, which Rhone then sold, incidentally, to a former Liverpool suitor, Dubai International Capital. Rhone’s offer is understood to be contingent on taking a “controlling” interest, stipulated contractually, even it takes less than a 51 per cent stake. “Leaving Hicks and Gillett with 60 per cent, or rather 60 per cent of voting rights, makes no sense” one source says. Rhone are understood to acknowledge privately that their offer will be unattractive to Hicks and Gillett because it offers them no cash, just a dilution of their shareholding. Equally, they know it is the only concrete offer Purslow has to date. As sportingintelligence has already reported, Liverpool’s co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett think Rhone’s offer is too low. Sportingintelligence understands that Gillett at least is willing to walk away from Liverpool altogether now, but only at the right price. The Rhone Group believes Hicks and Gillett are under more urgent imminent pressure to repay a chunk of Liverpool’s £237m debts to RBS than is widely believed. RBS has demanded that £100m be repaid no later than July. Some of that is actually due sooner, Rhone believes, although it is generally acknowledged RBS would rather allow some leeway than seize control of Liverpool. Agostinelli, whose ex-wife Mathilde is a senior executive at Prada, is an acquaintance of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, although only Mathidle, now remarried, and not Agostinelli, went to Sarkozy’s wedding to Carla Bruni. Much has been made of Agostinelli’s other “links” to politicians, but while both he and Langman have track records of political donations to Republicans, including to John McCain, it is not thought he is especially close to fellow long-term Republican Hicks. . A spokesman for the SoS group said today: “There is genuine concern amongst fans, that whilst we need this new investment, it may not be for the greater good of the football club. Tom Hicks and George Gillett made all the right noises and said all the right things when they took over and look how that has turned out. Fans have learnt from the past, and any new investors will come under closer scrutiny from those who genuinely care about the football club. We don’t want to be jumping from the frying pan, into the fire. “We are left wondering just what the Rhone group’s intentions would be. In the desperation for the club’s management to reduce the debt, we cannot do this without any consideration to what it might mean to the future of our football club. A quick look into Rhone’s previous dealings leaves fans worried at just what they want from LFC, with a worry that it would be a chance for them to make a quick profit – a profit that would be extracted from the club, reducing the opportunity to invest on the pitch. Until fans have their issues listened to and questions answered, any investment will be treated with scepticism and a great deal of trepidation.” . *The amount of the bid differs depending on which source you believe: a variety of people at Anfield including managing director Christian Purslow; Liverpool’s owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett directly, and indirectly via numerous PRs; bankers with inside knowledge of the search for funds; and other City figures connected to one or more of the above.

From Times Online March 16, 2010 Rhône Group should not expect a warm welcome at Anfield Tony Barrett Unlike in the recent past when Liverpool supporters have appealed to Dubai to come to the rescue of their club from co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, there were no “Rhone Group SOS” flags on the Kop on Monday night. There was one which read “Debt, Lies, Cowboys – Not Welcome Here”, a banner version of a series of protest billboards that have sprung up at various prominent locations in Liverpool, funded by the Spirit Of Shankly supporters group. There was another which told Hicks and Gillett to “$ell, $ell, $ell” and one that said “Liverpool FC: Built By Shanks, Broke By Yanks”. While in the Anfield Road end, the “Leeds, Pompey, Liverpool?” message displayed by both home and away fans was the starkest of all. Rhone Group are not seen as saviours on Merseyside. A private equity group whose modus operandi is cashing in on the weakness of others is never likely to be viewed in such a way. Their offer for a 40 per cent stake in Liverpool may meet the demands of the Royal Bank of Scotland, but it is never going to fire the imagination of those supporters whose famed passion is in grave danger of being extinguished by the plague of problems that has been unleashed on their club by Hicks and Gillett. Having welcomed the now reviled duo with open arms upon their arrival three years ago, the thought of Hicks and Gillett being joined in the boardroom by yet more Americans with a background in venture capitalism was only ever likely to cause an obvious and tangible feeling of once bitten, twice shy. In a city which hasn’t had a Tory MP since 1983, the year before Fernando Torres’s birth, the Rhone Group, with its heavy links to the American Republican Party, is always going to be a hard sell. All it takes is a Google search to reveal how both Robert Agostinelli and Steven Langman, the billionaires who run the group, have provided funds for several leading Republicans, most notably backing the Presidential campaigns of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Hicks himself is no stranger to putting his hand in his pocket for the Republicans, something he has never done for Liverpool, and like Langman he was a key supporter of George W Bush, from whom he purchased the Texas Rangers and whom he lives next door to. How close, or otherwise, Hicks is to either Langman or Agostinelli is still to be discovered on this side of the pond – and the Texan is certainly not enamoured by their opening gambit for a stake in the club he co-owns, but he clearly mixes in similar circles and the fear is that they are cut from the same cloth. Agostinelli, who once described Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, as “a leader who will save the country” and who also once opined that “the left is a cancer that needs to be eradicated”, is probably not particularly well versed in the life and times of Bill Shankly, the legendary former manager who is still so revered almost three decades after his death that he remains the ultimate reference point for all that is and was good about Liverpool. But if he has then he could do worse than check out one of the Scotsman’s most famous quotes, one that underpinned his ethos as a manager and a human being. “The socialism I believe in,” Shankly said, “is everyone working for the same goal and everyone having a share in the rewards. That’s how I see football, that’s how I see life”. It was this guiding principle which turned Liverpool from second division also rans to European champions in the space of less than two decades as the efforts of players, managers, coaches, supporters and everyone else at the club ushered in the greatest era of success in their history and each and every one of them shared in the rich rewards in their own way. None of this is to say that a right winger cannot flourish at Anfield and only a fool with little or knowledge of Liverpool’s history would suggest such a thing. Those halcyon says were, of course, also overseen by John Smith, their then chairman who as well as being a businessman who brought much needed market values to the club, was also a lifelong Tory who often clashed with Shankly over their rival political views. But if an American Neo-Con, which is what Agostinelli unquestionably is, wants to buy himself a seat on the Anfield board then he should be aware from the very start that his way of seeing the world is massively at odds with the traditional ethos of the club. There are those who say football and politics should not be mixed but it inevitably is and at times the concoction is explosive, as Hicks has already found out to his cost at Liverpool where the Spirit Of Shankly has been invoked by supporters protesting against the Texan’s presence. The initial suggestions are that the offer made by the Rhone Group is a cash one and that it will be good for the club as it will reduce its exposure to the debts piled onto it by Hicks and Gillett. If that is the case then it could be the start of the private equity firm becoming viewed as a possible force for good at Anfield. The only way that will happen, though, is if they are totally open about their bid and if they prove that there are no strings attached or any smoke and mirrors to cover any hidden attempts to add to Liverpool’s existing debt problems. Only if that happens will the Rhone Group’s advances stand a chance of being welcomed on the Kop. Its founders shouldn’t hold their breath for any banners in their honour, though. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article7065086.ece

Just wondering like, has he left yet, cos I thought he had.