There are several stories from the last few days stating both Gillett and Hicks are looking to sell parts of their sporting empires.
Hicks owns a 95% stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team, which he paid $250m for in 1999 - they will be worth several times that now. He wants to retain between 51% and 60%, so he could raise several hundred million dollars over the next few months
Gillett has put his entire business under review to look at options for sales and refinancing, he owns the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team and a NASCAR team BUT he has recently stated he will not be selling his Liverpool stake.
If we take the above at face value it looks like H&G value LFC above their other assets (which makes sense) and they would be willing to sell off other assets to avoid having to sell and hopefully start paying for the stadium.
The other option is that this is all a ploy to drive up the price of which ever group from the middle east they are talking to now.
Anyway, there is a chance that both of them are going to be around for a while and this has got me thinking, is it time to forgive and forget?
IMO the sins of David Moores far out weigh everything Gillett and Hicks have done:-
"Sins" of Gillett and Hicks:-
1. Failed to begin building the new stadium within the promised 60 days - I actually think this is a good thing as the "Parry bowl" looked ****, the kop would have been two tiered, it would only hold 60-65,000 and it couldn't be expanded. The new design is much better; single tier 18k kop, room for expansion, doesn't look like the stadium of light.
2. Talking to Jurgen Klinsmann about the managers job. This was a major error, I understand why they did, if they thought Rafa was going to leave they should have begun discussions with potential successors, but Klinsmann?! He'd managed about 5 games at the time, this showed a true lack of understanding of football.
3. Trying to transfer the debt from Kop Ltd to the club. This was always going to be unpopular, but i'm not sure how much difference it would have made, at the end of the day the owners will use the club to pay the debt, either through paying it off with profits or by selling. But they should have realised that we, the fans wouldn't like it
4. Continuing to talk about stuff in the press. We don't like this at all, we like the focus to be on the pitch, all these arguments are petty and distracting.
Over the past few months I think things have got better, Rafa has a new contract, he has control of football matters, Parry is going and Ian Ayre seems to be doing a good job.
"Sins" of David Moores:-
Moores became chairman in 1991. His uncle, John Moores, created littlewoods.
1. Failing to sort out the stadium. in 1992 Old Trafford held 44,000, Anfield held a similar amount (I can't find an exact figure). So as the scum over the next 15 years slowly buillt up their stadium we added a 2nd tier to anfield road, and that's it. The Anfield road expansion was poorly done, it seems no thought was put into how the ground could be expanded further and if there were serious discussions about a new stadium why bother with the expansion in the first place?
2. Failure to sort out the club shop and mail order. Again the scum during the 90's built a huge super store and were selling shirts and mugs all over the place. We had a **** little shed behind the main stand which could hold about 3 people at once and no mail order to speak of. Now this is really unforgivable, the Moores family owned (at the time) Littlewoods - that whole business is mail order and retail so he had the expertise to put something great in place for the club but decided not to.
3. Failure to exploit the brand and overseas opportunities. in 1991 Liverpool were the super power of English football, no one could touch us, but we failed to use that to generate more income. I remember at one point in the mid 90's man u had the biggest selling football magazine in the world - that should have been us.
4. Failure to do anything about the scum. They'd gone 26 years without a title and then they started winning everything. As the man at the top Moores should have realised in the mid 90's that a major change was needed but he did nothing about it.
I've just realised how long this post is, so I'll stop there for now. The point I'm trying to make is that we should have been angry at Moores for a decade and we weren't so maybe it's a bit harsh to be so mad with Hicks and Gillett...
Hicks owns a 95% stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team, which he paid $250m for in 1999 - they will be worth several times that now. He wants to retain between 51% and 60%, so he could raise several hundred million dollars over the next few months
Gillett has put his entire business under review to look at options for sales and refinancing, he owns the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team and a NASCAR team BUT he has recently stated he will not be selling his Liverpool stake.
If we take the above at face value it looks like H&G value LFC above their other assets (which makes sense) and they would be willing to sell off other assets to avoid having to sell and hopefully start paying for the stadium.
The other option is that this is all a ploy to drive up the price of which ever group from the middle east they are talking to now.
Anyway, there is a chance that both of them are going to be around for a while and this has got me thinking, is it time to forgive and forget?
IMO the sins of David Moores far out weigh everything Gillett and Hicks have done:-
"Sins" of Gillett and Hicks:-
1. Failed to begin building the new stadium within the promised 60 days - I actually think this is a good thing as the "Parry bowl" looked ****, the kop would have been two tiered, it would only hold 60-65,000 and it couldn't be expanded. The new design is much better; single tier 18k kop, room for expansion, doesn't look like the stadium of light.
2. Talking to Jurgen Klinsmann about the managers job. This was a major error, I understand why they did, if they thought Rafa was going to leave they should have begun discussions with potential successors, but Klinsmann?! He'd managed about 5 games at the time, this showed a true lack of understanding of football.
3. Trying to transfer the debt from Kop Ltd to the club. This was always going to be unpopular, but i'm not sure how much difference it would have made, at the end of the day the owners will use the club to pay the debt, either through paying it off with profits or by selling. But they should have realised that we, the fans wouldn't like it
4. Continuing to talk about stuff in the press. We don't like this at all, we like the focus to be on the pitch, all these arguments are petty and distracting.
Over the past few months I think things have got better, Rafa has a new contract, he has control of football matters, Parry is going and Ian Ayre seems to be doing a good job.
"Sins" of David Moores:-
Moores became chairman in 1991. His uncle, John Moores, created littlewoods.
1. Failing to sort out the stadium. in 1992 Old Trafford held 44,000, Anfield held a similar amount (I can't find an exact figure). So as the scum over the next 15 years slowly buillt up their stadium we added a 2nd tier to anfield road, and that's it. The Anfield road expansion was poorly done, it seems no thought was put into how the ground could be expanded further and if there were serious discussions about a new stadium why bother with the expansion in the first place?
2. Failure to sort out the club shop and mail order. Again the scum during the 90's built a huge super store and were selling shirts and mugs all over the place. We had a **** little shed behind the main stand which could hold about 3 people at once and no mail order to speak of. Now this is really unforgivable, the Moores family owned (at the time) Littlewoods - that whole business is mail order and retail so he had the expertise to put something great in place for the club but decided not to.
3. Failure to exploit the brand and overseas opportunities. in 1991 Liverpool were the super power of English football, no one could touch us, but we failed to use that to generate more income. I remember at one point in the mid 90's man u had the biggest selling football magazine in the world - that should have been us.
4. Failure to do anything about the scum. They'd gone 26 years without a title and then they started winning everything. As the man at the top Moores should have realised in the mid 90's that a major change was needed but he did nothing about it.
I've just realised how long this post is, so I'll stop there for now. The point I'm trying to make is that we should have been angry at Moores for a decade and we weren't so maybe it's a bit harsh to be so mad with Hicks and Gillett...
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