dear god... hicks : we lined up klinsmann

[disco]

There's two possible stories here.

Met with Klinsman (who I thought lived in California?) to discuss football
Impressed with what they heard
They hear that Rafa's potentially interested in jobs overseas
Offer job as insurance - completely reasonable and indeed prudent thing to do, Parry did it to Houllier a few seasons go.
Meet up with Rafa to clear the air
Cease pursuing Klinsman
React to press speculation
Rafa will know all this and won't be pissed off - misunderstanding sorted a month ago. Old news.

Want to get rid of Rafa
Tried to offer Klinsman the job, but inexplicably he opts for Bayern Munich
Decide to piss off Rafa and Liverpool fans by admitting all this
Rafa clearly pissed off. Quits.

Both possible, all I'm saying is we need to see which of the last sentences are correct

Without investigating which clubs do it (I know Spurs do), doesn't this just mean showing players as an intangible asset in the accounts?

So far we don't do this, but I can see how it would be an advantage.

Perhaps Rocket can confirm.

I'm assuming your second paragraph is your own speculation.

Your implying it would be the first cause of action or some sort of collateral on a loan, when it's anything but.

In reality if we really were in the **** because of lack of income (I'd suggest it would take far more than one year's non-qualification), then selling players is an obvious cause of action.

Tom, I've replied to your question and your earlier statement about using players to offset debt...

Thoughts?

[AFII]

Bayern said that they had to price Klinsmann away or else they wouldn't have got him. They only started to talk to Klinsmann December 17th and the offer from us was still on the table at that date.

I think that tells us that nothing at all really is resolved.

[disco]

Great summary - the situation in a nutshell!

Thanks

Reminds me slightly of when Rafa came to Liverpool and knew that Owen had been touting himself all over Europe.

[Jennings]

Me too. In terms of cold hard facts, so far by and large they have done as they said they would. The rumours are not good, they have made some collossal PR blunders, and they seem to be unsettling the club. But, but most of the air of doom is based on what people think is going to happen, rather than what has actually been done.

I don't mind them sounding out potential replacements for Rafa at a time when things were looking bad (and they were looking grim in November, when we were doing badly in Europe, were 8th in the league, and the manager and owners were only speaking to each other through the media). I do mind that it was Klinsmann though, who has never managed a club side, and whose reputation is based on reaching a semi-final with Germany (when's the last time they didn't do well in a big tournament), under home advantage.

But:

- for snoogy-doogy read Fernando Torres, there's no way we would have signed him under Moores. Regardless of how it was financed, Moores had to lend the club £10m himself to sign Kuyt, so c£20m for Torres would have been an impossibility.

- We are promised that a deal is close for the new stadium, which will be significantly better than the original Parry-bowl. And that a decision will be made in the next week or so.

- We now have the owners saying that communication is better with the manager and that he has their backing - though they completely ****ed up the PR on this one. The fact that they chose to stick with the manager after the Man Utd meeting is a good sign, and is probably the get-out for Klinsmann on his statement the other day saying he had no firm offers from an English club (he didn't, he'd agreed a contingency plan that was withdrawn after the Utd talks).

- On the debt, the Telegraph (who appear to have a contact at RBS given some of their detailed articles on the negotiations) has reported that they are close to a deal which will not involve putting the acquisition debt onto the club. On the timing issue, I wouldn't expect them to sign a deal until very close to the time that their current loan expires. They will want to spend as much time as possible negotiating the deal, and won't want to sign too soon in case the market moves against them. Similarly though, they won't want to leave it until the last few days, as RBS will have them over a barrel. They should be able to announce a deal in the next week or so, as Hicks has said.

- On this thing about securing against players - all debt will surely be secured against the total assets of the club, which will of course include the valuation of the playing staff. This isn't a new development, and applied to our debt before the yanks took over.


I am not a supporter of, or an apologist for, the two owners, I want to make that abundantly clear. I think they have gone about certain things extremely badly since they took over (e.g. this manager saga, their handling of the press, the releasing of stadium plans without full costs and financing attached to them etc.). BUT, in terms of cold hard facts, I think that they deserve the benefit of the doubt until the financing details are released, the stadium plans are released complete with details of how it will be financed, and until we hear Rafa's side of things on the latest revelations.

What's that saying again? Hope for the best, but expect the worst? That's not a bad summary of where I am. The signs are not good, but for now, I'm still hoping that things will work out. There are lots of good reasons to suggest that they might, as well as the well documented (on here) reasons why they might not.

Great post, mate.

[DeeTheDog]

What a sorry state of affairs, every day, another tawdry tale hits the tabloids. Since the takeover, we have been in tabloids on a daily basis, we are Britney Spears of the footballing world.

The covering the bases story is extremely flimsy, they must assume we are all gullible neanderthals. We were still unbeaten in the league when this began. How is anyone supposed to a job to the best of their ability with a axe constantly hanging over their head?

[Tom]

Tom, I've replied to your question and your earlier statement about using players to offset debt...

Thoughts?

Second para speculation, first para told by an ex-employee of the liverpool finance team. Don't ask me how it works, I haven't a clue.

[disco]

Second para speculation, first para told by an ex-employee of the liverpool finance team. Don't ask me how it works, I haven't a clue.

Fair enough.

It sounds to me like a perfectly reasonable response to the sort of question a bank HAS to ask.

However, it was made to sound much more sinister

Not that it won't stop the press making **** up.

[Tom]

Fair enough.

It sounds to me like a perfectly reasonable response to the sort of question a bank HAS to ask.

However, it was made to sound much more sinister

Not that it won't stop the press making **** up.

Yeah that lie about Klinsmann was very naughty.

[disco]

Yeah that lie about Klinsmann was very naughty.

Well, again, they've possibly made it sound far worse than it is

I'm surprised you trust the press so much. Personally I don't trust anyone!

[AFII]

Supporters see owners' Klinsmann move as a betrayal
Oliver Kay

There was a widespread sense of disbelief among Liverpool’s supporters earlier this season when The Times and other newspapers began to report that the club’s American owners were plotting to replace Rafael Benitez. Reporters have been accused of working with an anti-Liverpool agenda, of being hell-bent on driving Benitez out of the club, of inventing controversies when there was nothing but harmony behind the scenes at Anfield.

Let us get one thing straight here: The Times does not have it in for Benitez; Liverpool’s owners do. To go behind his back to talk to Jurgen Klinsmann, as Tom Hicks admitted today that they had, might have been within their rights as owners of the club, but in the eyes of the supporters, it is a betrayal. And to make this information public two months on, just when his position appeared to have stabilised in the short term, is either lunacy on Hicks’s part or a deliberate attempt to undermine an increasingly beleaguered manager.

Hicks defended the move by saying that he and George Gillett Jnr “attempted to negotiate an insurance policy, to have [Klinsmann] become manager if Rafa left for Real Madrid or other clubs that were rumoured in the UK press.” This might all sound very smart to Hicks, but it is an insult to a manager whose affection for and commitment to Liverpool runs far deeper than that of the owners.

Benitez has been far from blameless in this episode, but the only he was ever going to leave the club this season – as seemed possible in November, when his relationship with the owners was at rock bottom – was if he was kicked out. Real Madrid was not an option for him, partly because he and his family are settled on Merseyside and partly because of the job Bernd Schuster is doing at the Spanish club.

If Hicks knew anything about European “soccer”, he would have been aware of that. There was interest from Bayern Munich – interest that Benitez instantly discouraged – but that was about a job starting next summer. A job that, as it happens, Klinsmann has taken.

There is another issue here: what is the big attraction with Klinsmann? Why, like Roman Abramovich at Chelsea a year ago, were Hicks and Gillett seduced by the idea of replacing a European Cup-winning coach with a man with such little obvious coaching pedigree. Yes, Klinsmann took Germany to the World Cup semi-finals in 2006, but it was on home soil, riding a wave of patriotic fervour to overcome the collective might of Costa Rica, Poland, Ecuador and a toothless Sweden before a lucky penalty shoot-out victory (aren’t they all?) over an Argentina side that self-destructed in the quarter-final. They then lost to Italy in the semi-final. The view within the game at the time was that the real work had been done by his assistant, Joachim Low, who has proved his worth since taking the job full-time.

The similarities with the Chelsea situation a year ago are numerous: the Klinsmann link surfacing after an owner (or two in Liverpool’s case) had his ego bruised by a manager who dared to challenge his authority. Jose Mourinho was effectively left a lame duck after his fall-out with Roman Abramovich a year ago. He lasted until the end of the season and then, to everybody’s surprise, held on until mid-September, but it all ended in Iberian tears – just as it will with Benitez at Anfield.

What’s that you say? That everything is fine now that Foster Gillett is there to act as a go-between? That Hicks made clear in remarks to the Liverpool Echo that Benitez “has our support”? Do you really believe that? Do you see it as a genuine vote of confidence? Do you really believe that the media are the ones trying to drive Benitez out of Liverpool? Or has the penny dropped that Benitez will be out of Anfield by the end of the season? Unless, of course, Hicks and Gillett, fearing a revolt on the terraces, sling their hook first.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle3185370.ece

[The Erectile Banana]

Well, again, they've possibly made it sound far worse than it is

I'm surprised you trust the press so much. Personally I don't trust anyone!

How could they make it sound worse than it is?

Our owners have approached another prospective manager behind Rafa's back when he is still in the job and had supposedly been given assurances after their differences were patched up.

That's as bad as it gets as far as I'm concerned.

[TigaSefi]

We should stop buying club merchandise until this matter is resolved once and for all.

Have you tried buying anything from their site lately ? I don't think anyone bought anything in a while appart from some cheesys mugs.

[disco]

How could they make it sound worse than it is?

Our owners have approached another prospective manager behind Rafa's back when he is still in the job and had supposedly been given assurances after their differences were patched up.

That's as bad as it gets as far as I'm concerned.

Unless Rafa has been going behind their backs looking for a job, in which case they're as bad as each other.

The Klinsman meeting was a month before reassurances about differences being patched up?!

[Shaggy]

Oliver Kay spot on there.

[Gray]

Yep, good article