Liverpool FC Forum

by **Kharhaz** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:26 pm

Has anyone mentioned about Martin Broughton's horse winning today? If not...well....it did...

by **bigmick** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:27 pm

Kharhaz wrote:Has anyone mentioned about Martin Broughton's horse winning today? If not...well....it did...

20/1. There was a stewards enquiry too :laugh:

by **OneHotRed** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:29 pm

Hicks, you WILL walk alone

by **Kharhaz** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:30 pm

bigmick wrote:
Kharhaz wrote:Has anyone mentioned about Martin Broughton's horse winning today? If not...well....it did...

20/1. There was a stewards enquiry too

by **Ciggy** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:31 pm

Lawyers for Liverpool Football Club's co-owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, filed a motion for contempt on Thursday asking a Dallas judge to jail and fine club chairman Martin Broughton and other defendants in the case. Skip related content

A hearing to discuss the restraining order brought on behalf of Liverpool's parent company Kop Investment, owned by Hicks and Gillett, and the contempt motion was adjourned after 90 minutes and will resume on Friday at 1200 GMT, a court official said.

The 160th Civil District Court in Dallas on Wednesday had issued a temporary restraining order on Broughton, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is the club's largest creditor, and prospective purchasers New England Sports Ventures (NESV).

Earlier on Thursday in London, a High Court judge granted an injunction to restrain the Dallas court ruling, saying the case had no connection to Texas.

The judge said his ruling was not aimed at the Dallas court but at Hicks and Gillett and gave the duo until 1500 GMT on Friday to comply with his orders.

NESV, which owns the Boston Red Sox, had an offer to buy the English Premier League club for 300 million pounds ($479.8 million) accepted by Liverpool's independent directors but Hicks and Gillett have fiercely contested the proposed deal.

Asked when he expected the sale of the Merseyside club to go ahead, Broughton told Sky Sports News: "I think probably sometime tomorrow. We're nearly there. We'll have to see, we've still got to take away the restraining order."

In the motion for contempt filed in Dallas and seen by Reuters, lawyers for Hicks and Gillett said:

"Further showing their unlawful intentions and brazen disregard for their obligations, Defendants have undisputedly and according to their statements, quite proudly, violated this Court's temporary restraining order."

The motion, which was not the main point of discussion at Thursday's hearing, asked for the "incarceration of Defendants until they cure themselves of contempt and fine the Defendants for their actions."

The motion also requested a daily fine of $50,000 be imposed until the contempt of court was ended.

by **NANNY RED** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:32 pm

GRABBO WEARS TRABS :nod

by **Dundalk** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:05 am

This time tomorrow it will all be over......i hope

by **Kharhaz** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:09 am

Dundalk wrote:This time tomorrow it will all be over......i hope

This time next year we will be millionaires !

by **NANNY RED** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:15 am

Quote Ciggy" The judge said his ruling was not aimed at the Dallas court but at Hicks and Gillett and gave the duo until 1500 GMT on Friday to comply with his orders.

Do you know what Cigg our Grabbo wanted it to be in the mornin .but the judge said no Afternoon our time ,

by **Igor Zidane** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 1:46 am

Can't friggin sleep again . Feckin texan tw.at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw1iL1BrUPw

by **Reg** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:23 am

The midnight guard is watching over the forum.......

by **zarababe** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:27 am

I can't sleep neither reg... just want them out and it all to be sorted.. broughton looked warn out too - wonder if moores and parry are sleeping a wink tonight !

by **zarababe** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:40 am

Tom Hicks's aggression and refusal to go quietly shock 'Liverpool Three'

• Texan obsessed with Forbes magazine's valuation of club
• Liverpool board were ready for opposition from Hicks

David Conn guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 October 2010 21.52 BST Article history
Tom Hicks, say some who have worked for him, 'always believes in his own mission'.

Some of those who have worked for Tom Hicks attest to a man who believes absolutely in his own mission, that nothing will sway the Texan corporate warrior from trying everything to have his way. There is a strong sense that when he walked into Anfield with George Gillett, all smiles, in February 2007, making all those promises, Liverpool did not understand quite what they had become involved with.

Nine exhausting days since war broke out in the Liverpool boardroom, they finally do. Hicks made fortunes from leveraged buy-outs in the credit boom – borrow money, buy a company, sweat the company to service the loans, wait for its value to rise, then sell it – but then the credit crunch bit. Banks, previously happy to finance what then passed as enterprise, are now not only reluctant to do so but actually want their money back.

Liverpool's crisis – and its possible salvation if the club finally rids itself of the debt Hicks and Gillett borrowed to buy it then made the club service – stems from Hicks and Gillett having borrowed the £185m from Royal Bank of Scotland for only 12 months. Hicks and Gillett were never close but Gillett had taken to Hicks, another US sports franchise owner, the possibility of buying Liverpool. Hicks admitted later he knew nothing of "Reds" but, as he "researched" it, he could see the possibilities. By that he meant the TV revenues, expanding as audiences around the world feast on Premier League contests – usually on the field.

Martin Broughton, Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre – or the Liverpool Three, as they may soon be christened – knew Hicks would not go quietly if they decided as directors that the best, solid offers for the club were lower than the payday the Texan had set his mind on. Hicks placed his own baseball team, the Texas Rangers, into administrative bankruptcy last year after his holding company, Hicks Sports Group, defaulted on loans of $525m, which, like RBS, the banks wanted back.

As his 28-page petition seeking the Dallas injunction makes clear, even before the fevered allegations of "epic swindle" and conspiracies by the three directors and RBS, Hicks is obsessed with the $822m (£513m) valuation put on Liverpool by Forbes magazine and his belief that the club should fetch a fortune approaching that.

Broughton has consistently argued, as he did in court, that of all interest communicated to buy Liverpool, only New England Sports Ventures and Peter Lim, the Singapore businessman who made his unhelpful exit today, produced solid proposals and proof of funds. Some may think Hicks has a point: Liverpool is surely worth more than £300m and NESV, led by John W Henry, have themselves a steal. Broughton's response is that after an exhaustive worldwide search these were the best and only offers and therefore this is the club's true value.

The main reason for this lower valuation is the "acquisition debt" Hicks and Gillett borrowed from RBS to buy the club in the first place. Hicks's petition nowhere mentions this, that the pair borrowed that money, or that the club has had to pay around £40m interest a year to service it, or even that that is the money still owed to RBS. "Messrs Hicks and Gillett have helped to solidify Liverpool FC's financial position," his petition says. That is the world according to Hicks.

Broughton, Purslow and Ayre were ready for opposition from Hicks – who, rather than Gillett, with whom he has also periodically rowed, has made all the running in this battle. Broughton took consistent, careful legal advice from the club's solicitors, Slaughter & May, documenting the sales process, and all communication with Hicks and Gillett.

Yet even though Hicks might have been expected to pursue more money, his moves have still shocked with their aggression. Rather than attend last Tuesday's board meeting and argue the club should be securing more than £300m, Hicks attempted to sack Purslow and Ayre and replace them – not with acknowledged expert directors right for Liverpool but with his son Mack and Mack's assistant.

That was when Broughton went on the attack, claiming on advice upheld in court that Hicks and Gillett were committing "flagrant abuses of their undertakings".

Unbowed, Hicks and Gillett defended themselves in court here, arguing the "English directors" had ganged up on them. When they lost that, out came the 28-page legal tirade in Dallas alleging a "grand conspiracy", "epic swindle" and claiming over a billion dollars punitive damages from the Liverpool Three.

Liverpool and RBS were back fighting in court again today, gaining the judgment from Mr Justice Floyd that his proceedings have primacy over Hicks seeking to have the same case heard in Dallas.

And as ever with this dreadful saga, the broader truth hovers above the detail. As English football acclimatises to overseas ownership, unique in the world game, those in charge should ask themselves: did anybody think that allowing our clubs to be acquired with debt by all-comers could result in this, the future of Liverpool Football Club being put at risk, and fought over, in a district court in Dallas, Texas?

by **zarababe** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 3:07 am

Black days for English football

THE INDEPENDENT - BLACK DAYS FOR ENGLISH FOOTBALL
Friday, 15 October 2010

However it ends, the transatlantic courtroom drama that has engulfed Liverpool Football Club this week has already been a shameful episode in the history of English football. One of the most famous names in world sport has been dragged through the courts by two Americans desperate to avoid the club being sold from beneath them by their own bankers.

There should be no doubt about why Liverpool's destiny is being decided in the courts of law rather than, as it should be, on the football pitch: Liverpool is bust. The club's owners cannot afford to pay the £238m they owe to the Royal Bank of Scotland. What we have seen this week is a squabble over the financial carcass of a once proud sporting institution.

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The Royal Bank of Scotland took effective control of the club seven months ago when Liverpool's co-owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, failed to pay back their debts on time. The bank has attempted to sell the club, for nothing more than the value of its debts, to the American financier and sports investor, John W Henry. Messrs Hicks and Gillett have sought to frustrate this process through the courts in London and Texas.

If a sale does not take place the club faces being placed into administration, which would result in a disastrous nine-point penalty. And what are the prospects if the sale to Mr Henry does go through? The club's debts would, we are told, be substantially reduced. But Mr Henry is no lifelong Liverpool supporter, bound to the club through historic loyalty. Liverpool will have merely exchanged two mercenary foreign owners for another one.

How did it come to this? There is plenty of blame to go around. It must encompass David Moores (Liverpool's previous owner who sold out to Messrs Hicks and Gillett for a fat profit), the two incompetent Americans themselves and also the Royal Bank of Scotland which lent the pair the money to complete their foolish leveraged buy-out in 2007.

But the greatest blame must lie with the Premier League. What has befallen Liverpool is just one entry in a long catalogue of derelictions of duty by the league's governors. Over the past decade the Premier League has allowed English clubs to be acquired by a succession of dubious characters and financial predators. It has failed to ensure a reasonably level financial playing field across the league. The game's governors have shrugged their shoulders as sugar-daddy owners have pumped in money to buy quick success, putting immense financial pressures on smaller clubs that have attempted to compete. They have sat back while clubs have squandered vast television revenues on ludicrous transfer fees and grotesquely-inflated player wages. The majority of Premier League clubs are now running unsustainable losses and several have mortgaged their futures with staggering recklessness.

The lesson from the judicial torments of Liverpool supporters this week is that England's clubs need to be in the hands of the only individuals who have their long-term interests at heart: their fans. Germany has shown that this is possible. The Bundesliga authorities demand that all clubs are majority-owned by member associations and they are forbidden from spending profligately on player registrations and wages. This framework has delivered competitive football, reasonable ticket prices, profits for clubs and financial stability across the league.

The idea of implementing a similar structure in English club football has long been dismissed by the complacent and arrogant individuals who run the domestic game as a romantic dream. But supporters are beginning to wake up to the fact that something is rotten in the laissez-faire Premier League. Better a romantic dream, many now say, than the present financial nightmare.

by **mart** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:08 am

zarababe wrote:Black days for English football

THE INDEPENDENT - BLACK DAYS FOR ENGLISH FOOTBALL

But the greatest blame must lie with the Premier League. What has befallen Liverpool is just one entry in a long catalogue of derelictions of duty by the league's governors. Over the past decade the Premier League has allowed English clubs to be acquired by a succession of dubious characters and financial predators. It has failed to ensure a reasonably level financial playing field across the league. The game's governors have shrugged their shoulders as sugar-daddy owners have pumped in money to buy quick success, putting immense financial pressures on smaller clubs that have attempted to compete. They have sat back while clubs have squandered vast television revenues on ludicrous transfer fees and grotesquely-inflated player wages. The majority of Premier League clubs are now running unsustainable losses and several have mortgaged their futures with staggering recklessness.

The lesson from the judicial torments of Liverpool supporters this week is that England's clubs need to be in the hands of the only individuals who have their long-term interests at heart: their fans. Germany has shown that this is possible. The Bundesliga authorities demand that all clubs are majority-owned by member associations and they are forbidden from spending profligately on player registrations and wages. This framework has delivered competitive football, reasonable ticket prices, profits for clubs and financial stability across the league.

The idea of implementing a similar structure in English club football has long been dismissed by the complacent and arrogant individuals who run the domestic game as a romantic dream. But supporters are beginning to wake up to the fact that something is rotten in the laissez-faire Premier League. Better a romantic dream, many now say, than the present financial nightmare.

My thoughts exactly. :bowdown

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