Views on Hicks and Gillett? - Tell the Press

[ben23]

I'm writing a piece on Hicks and Gillett's takeover of Liverpool for Bloomberg, an American new agency, and i'm looking for people interested in talking about what the deal has meant for the club and the fans.

Also, if anyone has stories of encounters they've had either with the owners or their numerous sons and assistants at meetings / the match / in queue at Burger King, that'd be great.

Leave me a post on here with your details, or email me at:

[email protected]

Thanks,

Ben

[Tee]

Can you post a link to the finished article when it appears. Thanks.

[dww]

Just to let people know that we will be moderating this thread more strictly than normal in an effort to keep it on topic. Your help in minimising the effort this takes will be most appreciated - Thanks.

[MrMichael]

I'm pretty sure you'll find the vast vast majority of LFC fans view the takeover deal as having been an unmitigated disaster. In our entire history I doubt we have ever had owners remotely as unpopular as Hicks and Gillett.

The subject, as I'm sure you can imagine, has been done to death on boards like this one for a long while, but I'd imagine there'll still be people still willing to give their full views on the subject.

In the meantime, you might find some old threads on here slightly illuminating Ben, this one jumped out of a cursory search - link (page 5 especially).

[ben23]

so long as you help me make it brilliant...
there must be a fair few people out there who can tell me all about hicks jr's visit to the sandon...

[dww]

I'm sure I'm repeating myself here but I think that G&H, while they have been abject PR disasters and the way they financed the purchase is certainly a worry, haven't been as bad as people make out. It is possible that they have simply been lucky in that Rafa has done an excellent job to progress the club and not be put off by having more restricted budgets that Man U and Chelsea and with the unrest that has seemed apparent at board level but nonetheless they have raised revenues, provided more transfer funds than the previous regime and in the end backed Rafa - both with new contracts and now complete control of the footballing side of the club.

Running a club like Liverpool is always likely to be a learning curve and G&H do at least seem to be progressing along it somewhat.

The two big issues are obviously debt and the potential to build the stadium. Personally I don't see any major team embarking on a stadium building project at the present time so that seems a bit of a red herring - they simply took over the club 5 years, maybe a decade too late for it to be an easy proposition to get off the ground. Leaving us with the issue, and it is a big one of the debt, used to buy the club. Which is a bit of a bugger really. A lot rides on teh next refinancing and the terms thereof in my view.

[Chrono]

What's the purpose of the article?

[Joe King]

I absolutely love the two men. They have brought in new life to the club and have given us the platform to bring in new players and got rid of some horrendous staff

[ben23]

What's the purpose of the article?

to enlighten and entertain

[Pacman]

I'm writing a piece on Hicks and Gillett's takeover of Liverpool for Bloomberg, an American new agency, and i'm looking for people interested in talking about what the deal has meant for the club and the fans.

Also, if anyone has stories of encounters they've had either with the owners or their numerous sons and assistants at meetings / the match / in queue at Burger King, that'd be great.

Leave me a post on here with your details, or email me at:

[email protected]

Thanks,

Ben

They are horrible lying scum bags and I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.

They are ripping the heart and soul out of our football club and they are dragging our name through the dirt.

Everything that comes out of their mouthes is a lie.

HICKS AND GILLETT SHOULD **** OFF.

[Darth Marty]

I hope they die a miserable death, sooner rather than later.

[Neil Young]

I'm sure I'm repeating myself here but I think that G&H, while they have been abject PR disasters and the way they financed the purchase is certainly a worry, haven't been as bad as people make out. It is possible that they have simply been lucky in that Rafa has done an excellent job to progress the club and not be put off by having more restricted budgets that Man U and Chelsea and with the unrest that has seemed apparent at board level but nonetheless they have raised revenues, provided more transfer funds than the previous regime and in the end backed Rafa - both with new contracts and now complete control of the footballing side of the club.

Running a club like Liverpool is always likely to be a learning curve and G&H do at least seem to be progressing along it somewhat.

The two big issues are obviously debt and the potential to build the stadium. Personally I don't see any major team embarking on a stadium building project at the present time so that seems a bit of a red herring - they simply took over the club 5 years, maybe a decade too late for it to be an easy proposition to get off the ground. Leaving us with the issue, and it is a big one of the debt used to buy the club. Which is a bit of a bugger really. A lot rides on teh next refinancing and the terms thereof in my view.

I tend to agree to an extent. Expectations were ridiculously high initially with too many supporters failing to see through the PR - wishful thinking no doubt. When the scales started falling from the eyes then there was a massive reaction and now everything they do is seen in negative terms. So people tend not to focus on the fact that transfer spending has been at least in keeping with before, if not a little more.

Still, they're to blame for all that. People understandably expected change and there has been precious little of that as initiated by them. Any change that has happened seems primarily to have come from Rafa and by far their best decision is to put their faith in him, something they so nearly f*cked up with the Klinsmann debacle.

There is no new stadium and it looks unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future. There is massive debt that wasn't there before. Sure the implosion of world financial markets has made things worse but, let's face it, these businessmen only ever saw us a revenue stream, as a brand to milk rather than one to build.

They get a bad press among supporters but they've brought it on themselves. They're lucky to have one of the best managers around and while there are obviously a few others who could do a good job if he should leave there's no guarantee. If he leaves, we're in the sh*t.

[Vermilion]

They are horrible lying scum bags and I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.

They are ripping the heart and soul out of our football club and they are dragging our name through the dirt.

Everything that comes out of their mouthes is a lie.

HICKS AND GILLETT SHOULD **** OFF.

Saves me writing it. Thank you, and i agree.

[Leyton388]

Fact is they took over the club based on lies!

1. No debt which was a lie
2. To build a new stadium which is the biggest pink elephant in history
3 Brought in to help us compete in the tranfer market and now we are worse off than when Moores was in charge as we have to service £36m worth of interest charges.

All in all a complete and utter shambles

[dww]

I tend to agree to an extent. Expectations were ridiculously high initially with too many supporters failing to see through the PR - wishful thinking no doubt. When the scales started falling from the eyes then there was a massive reaction and now everything they do is seen in negative terms. So people tend not to focus on the fact that transfer spending has been at least in keeping with before, if not a little more.

Still, they're to blame for all that. People understandably expected change and there has been precious little of that as initiated by them. Any change that has happened seems primarily to have come from Rafa and by far their best decision is to put their faith in him, something they so nearly f*cked up with the Klinsmann debacle.

There is no new stadium and it looks unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future. There is massive debt that wasn't there before. Sure the implosion of world financial markets has made things worse but, let's face it, these businessmen only ever saw us a revenue stream, as a brand to milk rather than one to build.

They get a bad press among supporters but they've brought it on themselves. They're lucky to have one of the best managers around and while there are obviously a few others who could do a good job if he should leave there's no guarantee. If he leaves, we're in the sh*t.

I quite agree that they did bring the bad press on themselves and are far from being paragons of ownership virtue. I'm not sure about the building/milking the brand thing though - I just think that they had a different set of priorities to supporters. They clearly wanted to expand the commercial side and any investment in team improvement would be part of an effort to do that in the long run. In the end a competitive team is in everyones best interests and until the PL environment became such that the likes of Manchester City were able to splurge vast cash not accrued from footballing sources we were spending decent amounts on players compared to our competitors (even if United and Chelsea clearly had the ability to trump us).

I completely agree that keeping Rafa was their best decision and we could well have been ruined if they had gone the other way. However it's not as if significant proportions of the posters on here haven't called for his head on a number of occasions.

On a not unrelated note do you think Moores would have sacked Parry and given Rafa the control he has now? I think it is far from clear that it would have happened. I know this is venturing into the realms of speculation which you hate so much so I shan't dwell on the point.

Do you think that G&H have actually improved as owners since they took over or that they have been forced into a/ getting on, b/ giving Rafa more control and c/ stopped spouting hyperbolic drivel to the press due to forces beyond their control.


Yes, I did edit your earlier post