Liverpool FC Forum

bigmick wrote: Feck me.

Benny The Noon wrote:Indian billionaires Mukesh Ambani, Subrata Roy pitch for Liverpool Football Club ownership

The battle for Liverpool Football Club’s ownership became hotter on Thursday with Indian billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Subrata Roy jumping into the fray to buy Liverpool.

Mukesh Ambani, who owns Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s largest company by market capitalization, and Subrata Roy who owns Sahara Group that sponsored the Indian cricket team, have submitted their bids to buy the team, popular tabloid The S*n reported.

The move comes nine months after their reported failure to buy a 51 percent stake in the Anfield outfit, which Ambani had denied.

Indian billionaires will now face the Chinese government in the battle to buy the Reds, joining at least four other interested buyers including Chinese sports tycoon Kenny Huang.

Huang, who is backed by the $332-billion Chinese Investment Corporation, held talks to buy Liverpool’s $286 million debt off Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia.

However, the report said Huang, who is backing the new Reds boss Roy Hodgson with a $180 million transfer kitty, has emerged as the favorite to replace unpopular Yank owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The Anfield auction is now wide open, the report said.

"Some potential buyers have declared their interest but haven't tabled a bid, whereas Ambani and Roy have put their money on the table. At this stage Liverpool are happy to let everyone compete against each other to squeeze out the best possible deal," the report quoted an unnamed insider as saying

Ambani, 53, was buoyed by the success as a franchise owner of a cricket team in India that played at the popular annual cricket tourney Indian Premier League. He is valued at around $19.86 billion and is rated India's richest man.

Ambani's fellow billionaire Roy, 62, is head of Sahara Group, a sprawling conglomerate worth more than $7.94 billion, who is also sponsoring the Indian hockey team. He won the franchise bid recently to own another cricket team that will play in the next year's Indian Premier League cricket tournament.

Hicks and Gillett valued Reds at $963.46 billion after Huang's interest emerged.

Meanwhile, new Reds boss Roy Hodgson insists he would be more disappointed if his old chairman Mohamed Fayed had not put the boot in when he left Fulham, the report said.

The report also quoted Fayed as saying that he will take Liverpool downhill to which Hodgson was quoted as saying: "His comments were pretty jocular. I'd have been disappointed if he said 'we didn't want him anyway'. It's more flattering than if he'd said 'who cares'."

boodiddy1 wrote:the club is trying to tell us something. Why the chinese standard chartered? happy days me thinks