Liverpool FC Forum

by **roberto green** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 10:40 pm

PabloMedina28 wrote:Not really followed any of this takeover saga the last few days as a result of coming back 2 england and crying 4 the last few days lol. So is this Huang still in teh driving seat???

why was you crying?

by **PabloMedina28** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 10:41 pm

Because im back in england

by **roberto green** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 10:47 pm

PabloMedina28 wrote:Because im back in england

Don't worry it gets this hot even for us locals

by **zarababe** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:28 am

woof woof ! wrote:
NANNY RED wrote:im going on mastermind my specialist subject leveraged buyouts and hedgefunds id batter the lot of them .

Can we leave the politics out of THIS thread folks.

If anyone wants to start a "The Chinese, are they fit and proper" type thread by all means start one in general chat. Who knows, Roberts might even come back and chip in with some interesting stuff on North Korea.

it'll all be poop if he comes back woof.. know what I mean

..Nan girl you are so right.. since when did any of us read the FT.. these American's have a lot to answer for.. :upside:

by **Reg** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:29 am

bavlondon wrote:Huang admits he is not backed by China but claims £450m is in place

Consortium pledges to leave Liverpool debt-free but new stadium would only be a long-term goal

By Ian Herbert

Saturday, 7 August 2010

The Chinese businessman seeking to to take over Liverpool categorically denied last night that the Chinese state government was financing the bid in any way, though he insisted that he would table between £400m and £450m to secure the club's future.

Kenny Huang's declaration was accompanied by an acknowledgement that the consortium of investors he has gathered does not have the funds to relocate Liverpool immediately to a new stadium and that he cannot say when that vital move might happen. Huang made his position clear after the Chinese government faced a barrage of questions from taxpayers wanting to know why state finance was being spent on a football club through the Chinese Investment Corporation (CIC).

Kenny Huang is totally discredited, he flits from one scenario to another on a daily basis. I hope to goodness that Broughton sends him on his way, he's no more reliable than T&T.

by **Rush Job** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:35 am

JoeTerp wrote:
bigmick wrote:This is all a lot of b0ll0cks. It's for governments to campaign for human rights issues, not for football fans to get involved in. Yes I've no doubt they do some dodgy sh!t, but feck me we're hardly whiter than white ourselves as a country. Absolutely totally fecking irrelevent if you ask me.

but you are not your government. It would be or is a totally different proposition if Chinese people are buying the club compared to the Chinese government. Yes, it would be stupid to say that H&G are bad owners because of the all the horrible things that the American government has done. (they are bad owners for other reasons). But if the US Treasury wanted to buy Liverpool, or ANY government for that matter, there would certainly be cause for alarm, and you could point out all the human rights the government has violated and point out that all the money they have, they stole from their people.

The Chinese government is just one of the worst around (despite not being as bad as they used to be)

We only get to hear the very worst (western propaganda) about the chinese though. My brother lives in china so I get to hear the other side. We never hear how generally people live happier and much longer livers over there for a start.
Anyway like mick said I dont think it should be brought into this unless we are willing to take a sobre look at our own governments and the crimes they comit the world over.
Its got nowt to do with us.

by **zarababe** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:57 am

Reg wrote:
bavlondon wrote:Huang admits he is not backed by China but claims £450m is in place

Consortium pledges to leave Liverpool debt-free but new stadium would only be a long-term goal

By Ian Herbert

Saturday, 7 August 2010

The Chinese businessman seeking to to take over Liverpool categorically denied last night that the Chinese state government was financing the bid in any way, though he insisted that he would table between £400m and £450m to secure the club's future.

Kenny Huang's declaration was accompanied by an acknowledgement that the consortium of investors he has gathered does not have the funds to relocate Liverpool immediately to a new stadium and that he cannot say when that vital move might happen. Huang made his position clear after the Chinese government faced a barrage of questions from taxpayers wanting to know why state finance was being spent on a football club through the Chinese Investment Corporation (CIC).

Kenny Huang is totally discredited, he flits from one scenario to another on a daily basis. I hope to goodness that Broughton sends him on his way, he's no more reliable than T&T.

Reg.. the media is reporting all sorts.. Huang hasn't said owt re: who his backers are, it's all been media led.

An outline proposal in with the LFC Board.. and he looks like the front runner.. anything being said and denied muct be taken with a pinch of salt.. these are sensitive dealings and need to be handled carefully.

So lets not start discrediting ppl for acting discretely at a time of great importance for the club..

by **Reg** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:03 am

The Last Word: Another Chinese takeaway leaves a bitter taste

Liverpool need a saviour and are praying that new 'King Kenny' fits the bill – but the game shoots itself in the foot with abject fit-and-proper-person test

Sunday, 8 August 2010

There was a time, not many Thaksin Shinawatras ago, when a football journalist could approximate the economic might of a club's potential owner by popping down to his second-hand car lot and counting the "sold" signs. Alas, no more.

Now the poor hack must pour through financial websites, analyse accounts, dig up the credit ratings and cross-refer the commercial interests before checking out which national government may be, or probably isn't, backing the bid. The problem is that the information is often not available, or almost always not explanatory, and the task is hardly helped when the suitors themselves are rather less than transparent about who they are, who exactly they represent and what the hell they want with an association football club.

It is here where the Premier League's "fit and proper owner" test should be applied. But, as everyone knows, that is like applying the "scout's honour" test at the court for industrial fraud and espionage.

"Are you a fit and proper owner?"

"Yes, sir."

"Scout's honour?"

"I swear upon the toggle on my chest."

And so, right next to his cookery badge, the scamp gets to affix one labelled "fit and proper owner".

In fairness, it would be impossible to stop them anyway, because in this world spinning on debt, what constitutes a fit and proper owner? The paper trail is infinite. And so we have a few Americans owned by the bank, which, in turn, is owned by the taxpayer? Do we care to call Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs an unfit and improper owner? Perhaps in these complex times we do. Who knows who we can trust any more.

What does seem certain is the very best a fan of the very biggest clubs can hope for is that a publicity-craving sheikh or an ego-crazed Russian will provide the billions now required to launch a serious assault on European football's higher echelons. The only other option seems to be the leveraged buy-out merchants – who are usually from the US – intent on racking up huge debts against the club's worth.

So which have you got? It is the question without an immediate answer. The proof is in the pudding, or at least when the time comes to splash out on replacing the pudding up front. Why are they here, what are they interested in? The scoresheet or the share price? That's all it comes down to.

Of course, at the outset, the wannabes declare the two go hand in hand, and it's true in the long-term that they would have to. But there is a certain type of financier not known for his love of the long term. English football provides the wham-bam such types crave, the quick knee-trembler with instant self-gratification. It is fair to say the knees of Tom Hicks and George Gillett have trembled at times during their two-year ownership of Liverpool; it's also fair to say that when they blessedly take their leave, they will do so with many millions in reward.

This is the backdrop to the depressingly familiar storylines of the past week, which has seen one investor assume the role of saviour, with many more on the soapboxes in behind shouting out their own altruistic routes to the promised land. In a few days Mr Huang has become the second-most famous Kenny on Merseyside, and in a few days the government of the People's Republic of China has marched its billions right up the Anfield Road and marched them straight back down again. Mr Huang is still on the scene and saying the right things (investment in the squad and, more shamelessly, sending Hicks and Gillett packing with just a few yuan for their treachery). For Liverpool's sake we can only pray he is for real.

There is no genuine method for discovering if he is or not, certainly not within the Premier League apparatus, which is accused of being antiquated but is, in fact, as up-to-date as any financial checking post. There is the five-man board of Liverpool FC, and many are pinning their faith in this quintet doing the right thing. That is a quaint notion in many ways and not simply because Hicks and Gillett happen to be part of the panel and, regardless of their debt, will obviously have the final say over whom they sell their shares to and at what price.

Yet even if they could be over- ridden, who says Martin Broughton, Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre will be capable of separating – as Broughton put it – the wheat from the chaff? They can only ascertain that the funds are in place and the plans are on the table. The intentions cannot be so simply measured. Perhaps they can draw up guarantees, but what will these be worth? Hills of beans are less inclined to shift their position than self-serving owners, and the law scandalously allows goalposts to go a-wandering.

Essentially, even if they can convince Hicks, Gillett, RBS and whoever else has an interest in the debt pile that Candidate A is preferable to Candidates B to Z, this crusading trio will only be doing so on a hunch. And, however vehemently the fans campaign and set up their commendable supporters' trusts, that is the thread on which all of our clubs hang. It's a hunch, a promise and, if the club are extremely fortunate, a whim instead of an economic agenda.

The Liverpool faithful may feel it is coming to the climax of a horrific chapter right now, but the danger is that the story will go on and on, with only the identity of the villains rewritten. They will never admit this could be a case of better the devil they know, and neither should they. But each and every club are ripe for the plucking, to whatever degree, and each and every fanbase provides rich and easy pickings because of their own dreams. And the great shame is the innocent are never made to realise until it's too late.

From the Sunday Independant

by **zarababe** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:04 am

Legal Challenge?

Hicks and Gillett favour Syrian's £600m bid for Reds

Liverpool's owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett are ready to become unlikely boardroom allies in a bid to sell the club to Syrian businessman Yahya Kirdi.

Sunday Mirror Sport understands that the two Americans are ready to join forces once again to back Canada-based Kirdi’s £600million plan to take over at Anfield.

Hicks and Gillett, who fell out spectacularly in the aftermath of the failed attempt to replace Rafa Benitez with Jurgen Klinsmann three years ago, have been forced into a reconciliation by Kennth Huang’s attempt to sideline them with a takeover plan that would see his Sportscorp China Ltd group purchase the club in a deal that would pay off Liverpool’s £237m debts and force the Americans out with a tiny profit.

Sunday Mirror Sport revealed in April that Huang wanted to buy Liverpool. And his offer has won support from chairman Martin Broughton, managing director Christian Purslow and director Ian Ayre.

The trio are in a position to win a majority vote if Huang’s plan is put before Liverpool’s five-man board after Gillett and Hicks recruited Broughton in March to oversee the sale of the club.

Hicks and Gillett would have to mount a legal challenge to stop the sale of Liverpool against their wishes. And that scenario now seems likely to materialise following Kirdi’s announcement that he has agreed a deal with the two owners.

A source close to the Americans said: “Liverpool will not be sold unless the deal is acceptable to the current owners. Their valuation of the club remains unchanged and it is ludicrous to think that any bid will be accepted that doesn’t meet this criteria, regardless of the make-up of the boardroom.”

by **JoeTerp** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:52 am

Rush Job wrote:
JoeTerp wrote:
bigmick wrote:This is all a lot of b0ll0cks. It's for governments to campaign for human rights issues, not for football fans to get involved in. Yes I've no doubt they do some dodgy sh!t, but feck me we're hardly whiter than white ourselves as a country. Absolutely totally fecking irrelevent if you ask me.

but you are not your government. It would be or is a totally different proposition if Chinese people are buying the club compared to the Chinese government. Yes, it would be stupid to say that H&G are bad owners because of the all the horrible things that the American government has done. (they are bad owners for other reasons). But if the US Treasury wanted to buy Liverpool, or ANY government for that matter, there would certainly be cause for alarm, and you could point out all the human rights the government has violated and point out that all the money they have, they stole from their people.

The Chinese government is just one of the worst around (despite not being as bad as they used to be)

We only get to hear the very worst (western propaganda) about the chinese though. My brother lives in china so I get to hear the other side. We never hear how generally people live happier and much longer livers over there for a start.
Anyway like mick said I dont think it should be brought into this unless we are willing to take a sobre look at our own governments and the crimes they comit the world over.
Its got nowt to do with us.

that is completely missing the point I was talking about.

Is there a question of the British government buying Liverpool? no. If there was, then surely the British governments terrible record should be brought up.

by **NANNY RED** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:54 am

Taxpayer could take over Liverpool• RBS's main £237m loan expires on 6 October

)Matt Scott
The Observer, Sunday 8 August 2010 history

Liverpool are two months from becoming majority-owned by the taxpayer, which, the Observer can reveal, has become the likeliest outcome if a sale has not neared completion in that time.

The Royal Bank of Scotland's main £237m loan to the club expires on 6 October and must either be repaid or rolled over. Additional sums owing to RBS are believed to have increased the club's total debt to the bank to £325m. Liverpool's company secretary, Ian Silvester, said: "From what I understand, and that's all I can say, the urgency is there due to the pressure from the banks, so I would anticipate that something will be happening within the next four to six weeks or so."

One option open to RBS would be to put the club's parent company, Kop Football (Holdings), into administration, but that is not favoured since it would almost inevitably lead to a nine-point deduction under Premier League insolvency rules. Instead, the Observer has learned, unless one of the parties involved in negotiations to take over at Anfield follows through with a formal offer, RBS's corporate-restructuring team would assume control of Liverpool and run the club as a wholly owned subsidiary. That would effectively put the five-times European champions in the hands of the taxpayer who, through the government-owned UK Financial Investments Ltd, holds 84.42% of the issued share capital in RBS.

When the loans last required refinancing in April Martin Broughton was installed by RBS as club chairman. This is said to have been due to the inability of the current shareholders, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, to provide the necessary personal guarantees to the bank. But those close to the situation say RBS's patience has now reached breaking point. In the absence of a takeover or fresh funding from the Americans the bank will be entitled to oust Hicks and Gillett from the board of Kop Football (Holdings), a step the bank is believed to be ready to take in October.

"One or two in the bank are getting twitchy about getting their money back at all," a source said. "And they are incredibly nervous about the current bids. They don't regard anything as particularly serious at the moment."

Those said to be keen on bidding include the Chinese Kenny Huang, the Syrian Yahya Kirdi, the Kuwaiti Kharafi Group, the US private-equity firm Rhône Group and, reportedly, now the Indian conglomerate Sahara.

RBS's prerequisite in the sale process is for repayment in full, though none of the bidders has yet provided proof of funds. This is highly significant since formal due diligence cannot therefore proceed, despite pledges from several consortiums to build a new stadium and invest in the team.

That is when buyers would look for the first time over player contracts, planning applications surrounding the stadium and a host of other legal issues that could potentially throw up obstacles to a takeover. Due diligence can take weeks, so the chance of a takeover before the closure of the transfer window on 31 August is remote. There is also a growing possibility that the 6 October deadline will not be met.

In an effort to bring greater order to the chaos around Anfield, Broughton has issued a request for all parties to demonstrate their funding by the end of the coming week. There were indications yesterday from Huang's camp that he will show he is capable of financing a bid. However, for the first time there was an admission that any cash he has raised will not derive from China's sovereign‑wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation. That development raises issues over the credibility of Huang's bid, since those inside the sale process had previously been informed by his camp that CIC was involved.

Broughton will seek this week to apply similar pressure to Kirdi, whose consortium's credibility has been called into question by those involved in the sale process. If neither Huang nor Kirdi can meet Broughton's terms by next weekend, Liverpool will have no further contact with them.

That would leave only two, possibly three, bidders at the table. And without one of Rhône, Kharafi or Sahara proceeding over the next nine weeks to a stage where a takeover is almost a foregone conclusion, the prospect that Liverpool become effectively a state‑owned enterprise rises.

GOOD GOD
:down:

by **metalhead** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:06 am

Well we won't be owned by taxpayers because the club will have new owners in 2 or 3 weeks

by **fivecups** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:29 am

I have to say Nan that article by Matt Scott seems more grounded in realism than most of the inaccurate rubbish published over the last week. It does feel at the minute that NONE of the offers are robust and secure enough to proceed as yet. Certainly, Huang is coming across as a bullsh'itter at present (I know we can't be sure exactly whats going on, but he's been badly outed by the FT and others). The part about due diligence must be correct as well - how could they buy the club without a proper inside look at the books. I remember DIC saying they would need a month for the due diligence process, so it seems extremely unlikely that anyone will have completed before the end of the month. As Scott says, that may not be a bad thing if it ensures we get the right new owners. Bit depressing though, isn't it.

by **NANNY RED** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:37 am

i JUST HOPE BROUGHTON HAS DONE HIS HOMEWORK AND DIGGING LIKE ON THIS FELLA LIKE JIM BOARDMAN HAS

SCAREY

Yahya Kirdi. Fantasy island, without the planes.

Posted on August 7th, 2010 by Jim Boardman

Although a number of names have been put forward as frontmen for potential bids for Liverpool Football Club only a couple of them have actually gone on the record to admit any involvement. The most assertive in declaring his interest isn’t Kenny Huang of what is now known as “the Chinese bid” but Yayha Kirdi of what is now known as “the Joke bid”.

Of course it’s not being played out as a joke by Mr Kirdi or his advisors, but it’s becoming more of one by the day.

What he hasn’t said is who specifically it is he’s working for, other than some unnamed and therefore mysterious Canadian and Middle Eastern investors. This of course means there’s a fair bit of speculation about who they might be, at least from those who are giving him the benefit of the doubt that he actually has got some backers.

Sharja
One name put forward is that of Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasim. He’s the 71-year-old ruler of Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, and has been linked with a move for the club before.

What isn’t clear is where this link between Sharjah’s ruler and Yahya Kirdi has actually come from, given that he is keeping quite tight-lipped about his backers. It seems most likely that this link has been offered by a certain George Gillett. Anfield Road reported last week that Gillett had apparently been to RBS to tell them he had a serious bidder lined up in what seemed an attempt to stall the process that Martin Broughton is running to sell the club. That is the process the owners agreed with RBS as a condition of getting a further extension to the finance.

There’s always a possibility that this link has come from adding a few clues together to come up with an answer.

Those clues could have come from claims back in April when Kirdi’s name was first publicly linked with the club. He was described as a former international footballer for Syria and it was also claimed in some reports that he’d played and managed at Al-Ittahid Kalba, a club from the UAE state of Sharja. It’s the kind of claim that can add credibility to the idea of him being a trusted contact of some wealthy backers from the Middle East and it also gives out an impression that he’s got a strong background in the game.

But reports this week have thrown that particular bit of credibility out of the window. It seems he didn’t play for that particular Al-Ittahid club after all. The term “Al-Ittahid” means “The Union” and is used in a similar way to how the term “United” is used with British clubs. There are a number of teams called Al-Ittahid around the world, and that includes Syria.

Former footballer
Kirdi’s former club was actually Al-Ittahid Aleppo, a club from the city of his 1966 birth. He also played for Oruba Club from the same city. All this was back in the 1980s, and as for his international career, it now transpires that he played for “the national youth team” rather than the senior squad. Added to the question marks over his links to the wealth of the UAE are doubts that his experience in the game isn’t quite what it was built up to be in those earlier links with a takeover of Liverpool FC.

Searching for information on Mr Kirdi earlier this week, after excluding any link to Liverpool FC, threw up blank after blank. But he was eventually interviewed by the Canadian media from what turns out is his current hometown of Laval, a city in the Montreal area of Quebec, Canada.

The Canadian Press confirmed Kirdi was Syrian-born and said that he’d arrived in Canada eight years ago, in 2002. He told them his ideas on the club and the much-needed new stadium: “I want to build Liverpool. I have a new plan which I have given George Gillett. This one is not only a stadium but also a stadium and hotel, five star, and shopping centre.”

Straight away any hope he had of being seen as a credible option took a bashing. Finance is going to be hard to come by for a new stadium, but at least there’s planning permission for one. And to make it more viable there needs to be some investment in the local transport infrastructure because without it the city council will not allow a capacity of more than 60,000. The plans first shown to the world by Hicks and Gillett three years ago, for a stadium supposed to open this month, were for a capacity as high 76,000 by the time it opened. The owners stated that they hoped to have overcome those local infrastructure problems by the time the build was complete.

Getting planning permission for a five-star hotel might be possible, but getting the go-ahead for another shopping centre so close to the city centre and the new Liverpool One project seems a bit of a stretch. And that’s before we get onto the question of how much money all this is going to take.

Fan power
But that was nothing to the distance from reality of another part of Mr Kirdi’s “plan”. Although the reports didn’t actually quote him on it, he’d clearly told the reporter that “the facility would also include a solarium to generate solar power, which would be provided to Liverpudlians.”

In a part of the country where it has certainly rained every day since St Swithin’s day that doesn’t exactly sound a viable plan – and that’s before we get clarification of how a sunroom will generate solar power to be provided to Liverpudlians, or whether that solar power will have to be shared with Evertonians.

On Wednesday Kirdi had claimed his vague group of investors were in “advanced negotiations” with Hicks and Gillett (notably not Martin Broughton, the club, Barcap or RBS) and that “agreement has been reached on all major terms including the purchase price, repayment of the existing bank debt from RBS and Wells Fargo and financing of a new stadium in Liverpool’s Stanley Park. A formal purchase agreement between the parties is in the final stage of negotiation.”

Something jumped out of that statement straight away. Wells Fargo now encompasses Wachovia, one of the banks used by the owners to refinance their debts related to the club in 2008, but the club’s last accounts said that finance commitments with Wachovia/Wells Fargo had now been settled. It’s always possible that Wells Fargo do have an involvement in the club in some way, but it’s not clear exactly what. Perhaps this is a sign of how closely Mr Kirdi and his advisors have looked at the club’s finances and how serious they are about the idea of owning Liverpool Football Club.

AIG and FIFA
There were also claims in this week’s reports that “he has worked as a senior consultant with AIG in the Middle East”. We contacted AIG this afternoon to see if they have any record of this and will report back if we hear any more. It’s not clear when he did this work for them, if he indeed did.

Another of the claims that seem part of an aim to give Mr Kirdi some credibility was that Kirdi is “still active in soccer as a coach and has many contacts through his playing days and work with FIFA.” We’ve also contacted FIFA this afternoon to see if he is known to them in any capacity.

The planes, boss
Perhaps the biggest effort made to show him as a man of means, or a man acting for other men of means, was that he had been “recently negotiating to buy six CRJ1000 aircraft from Bombardier.” Elsewhere a claim had been put out that he’d actually put pen to paper on those deals and with the aircraft in question – passenger jets made by Canadian company Bombardier – costing around £27m each this was clearly a big deal he’d done. Yet there was no mention on the Bombardier company website for what would be £162m worth of jet plane, in his or anyone else’s name, in the time frame that had been claimed.

We contacted Bombardier to ask if they could confirm the order and explain why it was missing from their website. Isabelle Rondeau, Bombardier’s Director of Communications, told Anfield Road that if the order had been made it would have been on their website.

We contacted Mr Kirdi’s representatives to ask about this, they didn’t respond to that particular question.

One UK newspaper made a worrying suggestion about where Kirdi’s money could come from. The Daily Mirror reported that Kirdi was “backed by Montreal group Gameday LMC and, apparently, Syrian businessman Rami Makhiouf.”

Cellphones
Rami Makhlouf was described in a 2005 BBC report as “one of the most powerful businessmen in Syria”. He runs the country’s mobile phone network, SyriaTel and “with friends at the highest level in government, Mr Makhlouf, who just happens to be a cousin of the president, is a very powerful man. It is said that no foreign companies can do business in Syria without his consent.”

In 2008 he became the subject of sanctions from the US government. Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said that he had “used intimidation and his close ties to the Asad regime to obtain improper business advantages at the expense of ordinary Syrians”. The order saw any of his assets under US jurisdiction frozen and it also forbids US people or entities from doing business with him.

Kirdi’s representative in Canada, Dan Diamond, told Anfield Road: “I don’t know the name Makhiouf”.

However Mr Diamond was also unaware of major aspects of Kirdi’s relatively recent business history, suggesting that he’d not been told the full story about Kirdi’s background. And that background suggests Mr Kirdi is a long way away from being an associate of anyone with the kind of money required to win the battle to take Liverpool Football Club over, however that money was raised.

Heart
Mr Kirdi had claimed this week that he was well-travelled, suggesting he’d flown the world before deciding to settle in Canada: “I’ve visited all the world, believe me.” Anywhere specific? “North, South, Africa, Europe, the United States, Middle East,” he revealed. Then he found home: “I like Canada in general and Quebec especially. When my airplane arrived at the Montreal airport, I opened my heart because this is my country.”

And, it seems, shortly after opening his heart he opened a shop. A public records site in Quebec contains details of Mr Kirdi’s business activities since his arrival in Canada. It shows quite clearly the businesses that he had until 2008, after which there is no record of him being in business.

Shops
In 2002, which is of course the year of his arrival in Canada (according to this week’s reports) he began a business by the name of “Kirdi Pour Vetements” (presumably a clothes store) and another by the name of “Rasoya” (no clues as to what that might actually have been). Both of these businesses are recorded as having ceased trading in December 2006.

In 2004 he began a business called “Pizza Kirdi” and as the name suggests that was a pizza outlet. That business came to a close in April 2006, but it wouldn’t be the last time Mr Kirdi was involved in the pizza business. In December 2006 the records show that he began an enterprise called “Pizza Madona”, and this ran until September 2008. It’s now under new ownership with the name of “Pizza da Tony”.

He also had a business called “Dépanneur Monaco” for 10 months in 2006, which was what in the UK might be called an off-licence.

Assuming that Mr Diamond would have been informed of his client’s background, Anfield Road asked for an explanation of how someone with business credentials seeming to consist of owning a couple of pizza stores was supposed to be seen as part of a credible approach for Liverpool FC. We wanted to know why we should feel confident that Yahya Kirdi could bring the good times back.

Facts
Mr Diamond said: “Let’s deal with facts. Our group’s interest preceded the hiring of Martin [Broughton] and BarCap. We were one of a number of parties who had expressed interest who the current owners held out of the Broughton/BarCap search for new buyers. The owners excluded the parties on this list from BarCap’s territory. So we were ‘grandfathered’ and were never directed to do anything other than negotiate with the owners. That said, we hope to win the support of the LFC Board based on the strength of our bid.

“Kirdi and his backers are football men with experience as team owners at a much smaller scale. They recognize LFC as one of the world’s most important clubs. Their bid is based on the perceived value of an LFC with solid management, money to be active in the transfer market and an appropriate modern stadium. And they have the money to buy the club, clear its debt, hire top management and acquire quality players and get that stadium built. And they’ll do this without rhetoric or promises of instant success. They understand ‘The Liverpool Way.’

Pizza
“Kirdi has worked on behalf of this investor group for more than ten years but has never been involved in a high profile project like LFC. The pizza story is nonsense. Funny and slightly insulting, but nonsense.”

“Corner shop”
So perhaps Mr Diamond didn’t know about the pizzas. We sent him the proof, he replied saying it was, “frankly, news to me.”

Despite being caught off guard Mr Diamond was still good enough to respond in some detail. “Owning a depanneur (which is a corner shop that can sell beer and wine) and/or a pizza restaurant are travelled paths for entrepreneurial immigrants to Canada (and I suspect the U.K.) from the around the world who come with some cash, little language skills and a desire to create paying work for members of their family, Mr. Kirdi has made local investments while looking for bigger opportunities for his overseas investors.”

Yahya Kirdi – credible or not?
Whatever Mr Kirdi claims to be, it really doesn’t match up to what it seems he is in reality.

The solar-powered solarium is funny, the downgrading of his football experience is only a minor concern. He hasn’t ordered those six planes and that immediately puts a huge question mark over his integrity. His business empire was still impressive enough on an individual basis but it’s certainly not something that would put him in contention to take over one of the corporate boxes let alone the whole club. Only two names have been suggested as his potential backers – one of them is the ruler of an emirate he has absolutely no discernible link to and the other is someone that George Gillett and Tom Hicks are legally unable to do business with.

Whatever the truth turns out to be about the other possible candidates for the ownership of Liverpool Football Club, Mr Kirdi clearly isn’t a credible candidate.

by **lakes10** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:53 am

the way i hear it is this

Kenny Huang only has the money to by the debt but yet still has not shown the club the money and has no backers, this means that he can only by the loan off the club and that will not happen

Kirdi says he has the money and has handed in a 5 year plan for the club and shown the board he has the money for a full takeover....yet we hear strange things about him and he is friends with one of out owners now.

the third bid...the one that no knows much about seem not even to have happend due to lack of contact with the club.

in short....we are still f.ucked

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