Liverpool Owners Lose £42.6m: Will this Damage Rafa’s Spending Plans?

9torres - June 5th, 2009 at 11:38 am

the loss was suffered between August 2007 and August 2008, considering our performance this season i think the losses will be less from Aug 08 to Aug 09 but the fact of the matter is the debt is crippling the club and that is why new investment is being sought, quick fix is to sell the club (least likely), most likely they will sell off some other assets. They are trying to sell their franchises in the US in order to pay off a bulk of the loan and reduce the interest payment.

Personally i would love to have a vastly wealthy owner come in and bail us out, but in reality how likely is that? It will cost them £400m before they have even built a new stadium. We won’t hear anything until mid-July anyway as that is when the finance/buyer will be in place. It really depends how keen investors are to buy LFC.

Coggin - June 5th, 2009 at 11:50 am

9torres – June 5th, 2009 at 11:38 am

I heard one of the money rich Arabs made about a 2 billion the other day selling shares in Barclays so 400m will be a snip for them if they really want to buy, they know how to make money and of course spend it, unlike Hicks/Gillett

9torres - June 5th, 2009 at 11:53 am

Sounds about right, only problem is, as we can see with Mark Hughes at City, they tend to decide which players are bought.

george - June 5th, 2009 at 11:57 am

a big thank you yo messrs moores and parry for leaving the club in the capable hands of these 2 american clowns how can 2 so called business men with all their years of experience get hoodwinked by these yanks into selling the club. was it down to parry getting his 30pieces of silver in the form of a backhander? we will never know but this we do know its gona take another 20years to get our hands on the holy grail

Coggin - June 5th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

Barry is not the sort of player I would imagine a mega rich owner would have picked to buy, they would want the Villa’s, Kaka’s and Ronaldo’s so I think that Hughes must have had some imput on players but I understand what you mean, saying that I want Liverpool competing again fot the prem next season and at this rate we may be fighting for Europa, Rafa will have to either sign some good players or show how good a Coach he is with the players we have.

YNWA - June 5th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

Two big fat yankee clowns!

9torres - June 5th, 2009 at 12:15 pm

I suppose you’re right, i think they realise they need experienced EPL players though. I know we will have to wait til late July to find out but that may be another summer without strengthening and while the other sides are signing re inforcements we may be left by the wayside.

I just dont see how the americans think they can compete without the neccessary funds.

john - June 5th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

they wont be able to refinance themselves and have to sell up. and i guarantee that there will be big interest. we have had about super rich groups try to buy us over the last year and at least one of them will come back in for it if need be. the latest one was the guy from kuwait or somethin. then u got some saudis or somethin. i dunno the details but a club like liverpool will always have potential buyers. although i regret the need to have to buy back the title with money as much as getting it back with a good team

The Days Of Daglish Are Nearly Back - June 5th, 2009 at 1:20 pm

The sooner those two cock nosed yanks are out the better! They have been trouble since day one! Never in the history of Liverpool FC have transfer targets been branded about in the media which makes it so much more difficult to make signings. Let alone the squabbling and long winded contract talks with Rafa. And these are two guys with experience running major sports team in the US!!!

Liverpool aside, talking purely as a football fan, rich owners have spoilt the beautiful game. The big clubs of Europe were always a step ahead and competition was tough. But now it is almost impossible for clubs to compete unless the are taken over by a multi billionaire investor. The amount of money in the modern game is ridiculous. It used to be that players played either for the love of a team or to play under a great manager with great players. And that if a team were successful they attracted greater quality players and improved. You have to feel sorry for Aston Villa and dare I say it Everton. They’ve got great managers, slowly developed good teams, improving year on year, yet they have little to no chance of even breaking into the top four. Whereas the likes of Chelsea and now Man City what did they do? Granted they were decent sides but to simply create success from buying it is not the way it should be.

But what can you do….?? You either look for the billionaire investors or get left behind. Only problem now is Liverpool are a less attractive investment than before tweedle dee and tweedle dumb arrived so investors may be hard to come by.

Warrenisaredfan - June 5th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

I think the time has now come for Liverpool to seek new buyers. Hicks and Gillett have been terrible from day one, first with all the in-fighting and now with their cripled walets. We have to face the facts, the Premier league has become the most competitive and expensive league and we need money to strengthen our squad. If we fail to get new owners than I beleive potentially, crippled by all this debt we will become a sincking ship, forced to sell our greatest assets just to make ends meet.

TEDSUZUKI - June 5th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

Hicks and Gillet has been trouble since the beginning. But who let them in? Moores, Parry and the board has to take some responsibility too. DIC were clearly the better option but what wrong’s? Because they are Arabs? I think Moore and the Board has made a huge blunder over this one.

Back to the topic? Will this problem affect Rafa’s spending? Well, say you go down shopping and hoping to buy an ice cream. You open your wallet and realize that there is nothing. On top of it, there is this huge mortgage payment which is due tomorrow and that will be deducted from your account. Everything you earned the previous month will go to servicing the interests of the mortgage payment alone and that’s not even paying the principle yet. Tell me, would that affect you buying the ice cream?

Shit…now I can’t seen anybody coming in the summer transfer. Please don’t even dream about Silva, Villa, etc.

9torres - June 5th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

If we look at it mathmatically and logically, Hicks and Gillet both have saleable assets in America worth hundreds of millions of pounds. They have found they cannot afford to service all of them and are looking to sell their American franchises in order to pay off the debt at Liverpool and begin to build the stadium. They have 2 options, pump their own cash into Liverpool to reduce the level of interest they are paying, or sell to someone who will pay off the debt and start again.

Either way i don’t think we have a massive amount to worry about. They will continue to invest this summer as they want their asset to be as profitable as possible and we need on pitch success in order to be profitable. If we don’t see investment in players before the end of the month i think we can be assured a sale is on the agenda.

TEDSUZUKI - June 5th, 2009 at 4:28 pm

9torres, that’s just presumption the yankees are selling their other interests for Liverpool sake. What concerns me is the way things are managed. Right from the beginning they are borrowing from the bank to buy the club. So basically not really their own money. With what liverpool earned last financial year of 156 mill, all that has gone into servicing the loan they took to make the purchase. In other words, their actual contribution is minimal. What happens thus far is the lender forks out the money and product itself is trying to pay off the lender. All the while the purchaser just sits there with minimal commitment.

If money is available, I would imagine Distin would not be a primary target. Or that players like Tuncay are related. I somehow don’t think the Yankees are going to sell up.

Tim Tyler - June 5th, 2009 at 5:50 pm

Yeah, and that will soon leave us battling it out with Wigan or even Forest at this rate.

Lfc mad - June 5th, 2009 at 6:20 pm

If George Gillett sells his Montreal Canadians (worth $335 million) and Tom Hicks sells his Texas Rangers (worth $365million) they could pay off the debt and still have a profit ! but dy wouldn’t have enough for the proposed new stadium so there’s only one solution…..yanks out !….S.O.S DIC and Kuwuiti consortium !!! P.S Man U and Chelsea have twice the debts we have !

Dom - June 5th, 2009 at 6:40 pm

For gods sake, will you guys calm down. Its nothing to worry about

Days Of Daglish Are Nearly Back - June 5th, 2009 at 11:33 pm

Dom is right fellas, this is all media over-hype. Man U and Chelsea do run much higher debt than us. Essentially the value of asset (the club) acts as collateral for it’s own loan as unless a club goes into free fall, it’s value is almost guarenteed. However the way their debt is structured is so much more affordable than what Hicks and Gillette set up. That said, will there be a mass exodus from Liverpool this season, selling our top stars? No. Will there be less in the transfer kitty to spend on new players? Probably not. Our loan is likely to be restructured, affording the owners more time to find buyers. And the more they invest now, they improve the likelihood of potential investors coming in to buy them out. What is the worry is it sends out a doubt over the long term stability of the club which may ditract top quality players joining as they may feel further, ongoing investment is unlikely and so we are unable to push for the league and champions league and re-establish ourselves firmly back amongst the European elite.

TEDSUZUKI - June 6th, 2009 at 5:19 am

Thanks for the clarification, guys. I am not going to read the Sun anymore. What piece of shitty reading!!! It sounded like Liverpool is going to be a Leeds tomorrow.

dibbler - June 6th, 2009 at 10:45 am

Thats what i was on about Tedsuzuki im not telling you what to read mate but i would not read that crap if it was free.
As for the debt im not too worried yet and we will see how much it effects us in the silly season but im expecting at least one big big signing and a few good signings in certain positions but i think a lot depends on city this year as soon as we are linked with someone they will jmp in with silly money but its not such a bad thing because it means we will sign players who want to play for us and not for the dollar.
YNWA

Dom - June 6th, 2009 at 10:46 am

No liverpool fans read the sun. Its been boycotted since they wrote that awful article about hilsborough.

Not even evertonians buy it. No stores in liverpool stok it either.

More shit is circulating now, that we won’t get silva cos we cnt afford him.. nonesense. If they promise rafa 30mil, that’s what they’ll give him.

However I will say this. If they truely care about this club and want it to move forward, they need to sell to people who can invest heavily in the club, or they need to sell there aerican assets and focus on this club. I’m siick of watchin the man uniteds and chelsas able to buy 30mil player, while we struggle to get 8mil players!

Xander - June 6th, 2009 at 12:08 pm

Agree with u dom
This bulshit must end. I wish we get new owners for rafas sake cause fans are crucifiyng rafa cause he doesnt buy top players but noone seems to get that its not his money. We need some real money to ect. Get a bigger stadium and buy better players.

coggin - June 6th, 2009 at 12:32 pm

This is the report in the telegraph

A report today in The Daily Telegraph, which is quoting from Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance, shows that Chelsea alone are £711 million ‘in the red’, with the vast majority of that being a ’soft loan’ from Russian oligarch owner Roman Abramovich.

Manchester United, owned by American entrepreneurial family the Glazers, are £649 million in debt, whilst their North West rivals Liverpool, also in the hands of Americans in the form of George Gillet and Tom Hicks, owe £300 million.

Arsenal, whose manager Arsene Wenger has faced vitriolic criticism from the club’s fans for his parsimony when it comes to transfer dealings, have a £318 million debt hanging round their necks.

These debts are accompanied by huge interest payments, with United facing a combined interest bill in 2007/08 of £69 million. Liverpool paid out £35 million in interest, with both clubs owing their debts primarily to banks.

Now while Man U and Chelsea will continue to buy big players they are just adding to this debt, our owners are a bit more careful; seeing that they don’t have any money, we all knew about this debt from the start just as we know about Man U’s debt, what we want is a mega rich owner to buy star players and build a stadium that would near double not just the capacity but the revenue, we all know that DCI was most likely that buyer and are waiting in the wing to buy again once the yanks decide they have to sell, they may try and sell their American assets but could struggle to sell them but if LFC was put up for sale today then there would be buyers for it at the right price tomorrow.

I hope that the deal is done sooner rather the late as the players we were all drooling over last week may be gone from the shop window into the pocket of another club.

YNWA

Xander - June 7th, 2009 at 1:34 pm

Aparently we gona get more transfer cash than man utd
Can anyone tel. me if this is true?

Warrenisaredfan - June 7th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

Xander as much as I would like this to be true, the likelyhood is that we will have approximately £10-15m unless Liverpool can find further investment, sell star players or find new owners. I personally would like to see new owners come in.

jimmycarterwingwizard - June 7th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

no xander this isnt true!
to the japanese sounding fella glad to know youve decided not to read the scum…but surely being a red you were aware of this boycott….whilst it is not true still some shops sell the scum in liverpool & surrounding areas…but that doesnt mean you have to buy it. regardless of their lies about that dreadful day remember it as a twat of a paper anyway !
now for my rant about our american saviours who as i recall were welcomed with open arms by fans & moores & parry alike…but did they ever get questioned. no even moores admitted recently that he hadnt even met fuckin fat head hicks…nows that what i call a business man. MOORES and I make no bones about this totlally sold us down the river & that pisses me off more than those cowboys. our present state is highly embarrasing and our so called chase of big name players is an absolute joke! yes shitty city dio all of sudden have the dollar to flash but lets all be honest these guys seem more proactive than the wankers we have in charge!
so what happen? be afraid all because luckily we have 2 world beaters in our side who may keep us afloat because without those two…fuck the future may look darker than it is….but if it aint sorted fast & these 2 tossers & Moores are thrown overboard….this air of uncertainty that clouds are once great club will continue to hover!

susan Im not mad just fucking mental boyle oval head and wear my dead mums clothing fan club!

Xander - June 7th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

Thanks for clearing it up for me guys.

john - June 7th, 2009 at 11:50 pm

if they have said in rafas contract they will give rafa 30 mil budget and money raised from transfers then they MUST give him the money otherwise they are in breach of contract. but this also means that rafas contract could be seen to be voided and then he could just walk out. although i dont think this will happen it is still a worry. i reckon that they will ether sell up assets in america to fund lfc or they wont be able to meet the deadline and will sell to the kuwaities or DIC or whatever arabs are willing to take on the debt. theres pretty much 0% danger of liverpool facing ruin coz of all this. at worst we wont bring in who we wanted but then look at last transfer window and who exactly we got then that are any good? riera is the only exception.

Xander - June 8th, 2009 at 3:18 pm

So to sum it up
Gillet and hicks must either get cash of get lost
We dont really care wich one am i right or am i right