Hicks and Gillette

In May of 2007, I sat in a pub in Birmingham with three American colleagues enjoying Liverpool v Chelsea in a Champions League semi-final. The BBC was there with cameras; they had already interviewed a Liverpool fan and were looking for a Chelsea supporter when someone pointed out that I was an American Liverpool fan and they felt it was worth a couple of minutes of videotape. I'm pretty sure they didn't use my footage. I was asked whether the then new American owners appreciated the passion and tradition of Liverpool. I answered honestly that I did not. I said that unfortunately, I believed they believed they had bought a "franchise".

Sadly, I was spot on.

Hicks has shown himself to view clubs as an asset to be exploited. He intentionally put the Texas Rangers (baseball ) into administration in an attempt to block what he considered to be an unfavorable sale. In what appears to be a pattern, a higher authority (the commissioner of baseball in this case) had to step in to force the sale. One can assume that when he divests the Dallas Stars (hockey) there will be litigation.

In the end, I think H&G can be judged to be strangely both cynical and naive. I believe they were masterfully manipulated by Benitez, who knew that he was immensely more popular that the Americans. Benitez whined about funds while spending pretty freely. He had one great buy under the Americans, but Torres must be weighed against Lucas, Babel, Aquilani, Riera, Keane, and Dossena.

H&G believed they would have no trouble getting financing for a new stadium (something that it does make sense to borrow to fund). As it turned out, the global economy went off the rails, and banks became reluctant to make the highly leveraged loans that Hicks used to made his fortune. A bigger stadium, with luxury boxes, high ticket prices, and a capacity to rival Old Trafford or the Emirates might have boosted the clubs value and revenue to make their tenure viable. Instead, their relationship with supporters deteriorated to the point that physical violence seemed inevitable.

In the end, the same banking crisis that thwarted their stadium plans spelled the end to their tenure. RBS, mostly owned by the government, must have winced every time their name was mentioned in association with the loans. The uncertainty meant no other banks wanted to replace RBS, and finally RBS forced the Americans' hands. Plenty has been written about Broughton's work; I won't repeat those events here.

Good riddance to Gillette and Hicks. I doubt the new owners will be as good as I think Liverpool supporters deserve, but they certainly won't be as awful as their predecessors. Now here's hoping that success in the boardroom and courthouse translates to success at Goodison tomorrow.