Rick Parry’s successor named.
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Posts Tagged ‘Rick Parry’
Yet another draft of an unsigned contract currently lies on the coffee table of Senor Benitez, although it appears as though the Liverpool manager might now be putting pen to paper very soon. [Read the rest of this entry »]
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Rafael Benitez is one feisty hombre – and a scruffy one at that. Maybe it’s his Spanish blood, or perhaps he’s always been something of a hot-head, clashing with teachers at school and continuing this trend during his adult life with his paymasters. It appears that he’s had to do some kissing and making up with Rick Parry this week, after clashing rapiers with the Liverpool chief executive. [Read the rest of this entry »]
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Well according to co-owner Tom Hicks anyway, and can you really trust a man who has already undermined Rafael Benitez by speaking twice with Jurgen Klinsmann, as well as publicly stating that Rick Parry should walk away from the club? Nevertheless, The Times reports that Hicks had some productive discussions with Benitez regarding new summer signings, despite the continuing speculation over the ownership of the club.
Has Hicks made a beeline for the Liverpool manager in an attempt to get the fans onside? After all, there appears to be something of a power struggle developing between him and George Gillett.
“We had a great meeting,” Hicks said before yesterday’s second discussion. “We talked about a lot of things and it was very positive and encouraging. We have agreed to meet again and it is a very healthy situation. Rafa is happy and wants to talk about where he is taking the club.”
There were claims from some sources that Benítez had told Hicks that he was unwilling to discuss anything of significance unless Gillett, the Texan’s estranged co-owner, and Rick Parry, the chief executive, were in attendance. But Hicks said: “I am surprised if anyone else is saying different. We plan to all get together and discuss the future and Rafa is happy with that.”
Oh to be a fly on the wall when Rafa, Hicks, Gillett and Parry all ‘get together’ in the boardroom to discuss future plans for Liverpool FC. Despite Hicks’ protestations, Gillett appears to be mad keen to sell his shares to DIC, especially as the relationship between the pair appears to have broken down irrevocably.
Tagged Under: benitez, DIC, gillett, hicks, klinsmann, Liverpool FC, rafael, rafael benitez, Rick Parry
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It would be naive to think that Premier League clubs wait until the end of the season before setting their sights on new summer signings. Indeed, it appears that the wheels have been turning at Anfield for some time, despite the continuing off-field spat between Liverpool’s American co-owners, leaving Rick Parry in the firing line.
The Guardian carries Rafael Benitez’s revelation that the Reds have already signed a new player for the senior squad, with the Spaniard giving away a couple of clues as to who this might be. There also appears to be an influx of young talent coming through, who might essentially end up playing under a different manager if Rafa bites the bullet.
“We have some signings for the next season done. They are senior players for the first team and young players for the first team and reserve team. Two of them are really close, young players, and one senior player is done. He talks good English, but is not English. I’m not giving any more clues! You need to look for Bosman players and sometimes you need to do it quickly and go for cheap players.”
However, uncertainty does remain over Benitez’s future at the club and will continue to do so until the club’s ownership is resolved. He’ll be crossing his fingers that Tom Hicks buys out George Gillett and some stability at Liverpool can be established.
Tagged Under: Anfield, benitez, George Gillett, Liverpool FC, rafael, rafael benitez, Rick Parry, tom hicks
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Tom Hicks speaks about the disappointment at the fact that he and his family can’t set foot in Liverpool at the moment, for fear of being attacked. Indeed, while nobody sane would condone this, the Reds co-owner is doing himself no favours whatsoever with his repeated attacks on Anfield chief executive Rick Parry. Why not at least wait until the end of the season? Is the man on drugs?
The Guardian report that Parry is remaining level-headed when it must be very difficult for him to keep shtum. Last August, he must never have envisaged that his name would be dragged through the mud like this and it must be especially galling that calls for his head come from a man who seemingly has little interest in the history of Liverpool FC.
“It’s for the board to ask me to resign and they haven’t,” Parry said in response to an interview in which Hicks repeated his calls for Parry to quit. “I’m accountable to the board and this is not something the board has discussed with me.
“I have a duty at the moment to try to keep things on an even keel when there’s turmoil off the pitch. I just want to do my best for the club. I’m focusing on the day to day. We have a Champions League semi-final coming up. There are a lot of important things to be done at the club and that’s the focus.”
Parry also expressed his disappointment at the public way in which Hicks had commented on the club’s difficulties, adding: “There’s a Liverpool way, which I think I understand and will stick to, and there is clearly a different way.”
Good for him. Let’s hope he outstays Hicks and his big mouth. The tide turned against the Liverpool co-owners a long time ago as far as the fans are concerned and now they are digging themselves deeper and deeper into a pit of hatred.
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Looks like the power struggle between George Gillett and Tom Hicks might only just have started. The pair might have been a partnership when they acquired the major shareholding in Liverpool FC but they now seem poles apart.
The Daily Mail reports that Tom Hicks has fired off his latest verbal volley, accusing Gillett of wanting rid of Rafael Benitez, although continuing his attack on Rick Parry, branding the Anfield chief executive as a disaster. Where will it all end for the club?
“Look at what’s happened under Rick’s leadership. It has been a disaster,” claimed Hicks. “We have fallen so far behind the other leading clubs.
“We should have the stadium built three or four years ago. We have two or three major sponsors when we should have 12 or 15.
“We are not doing anything in Asia, the way that Manchester United and Barcelona are, and we have a tremendous number of fans in Asia. We have still got the top brand in the world of football but that’s no good if you don’t know how to commercialise it.
“Rick needs to resign from Liverpool FC. He has put his heart into it but it is time for a change. You have to be able to work with the manager and Rick has proved he can’t do that. At the first meeting we had with Rafa he talked of the number of players he had missed out on because he (Parry) was too slow. Too many times nothing happens.”
On the infamous meeting in New York last year about Klinsmann becoming manager which undermined Benitez, Hicks added: “George became good friends with him (Klinsmann) a year ago. I get this call from George out of the blue in which he says ‘have your people do their research on Klinsmann’. He and Rick set up the meeting in New York. I did go to the meeting along with my son Tom.
“Rick Parry had already met with Jurgen alone for a couple of hours when we arrived. We all then spoke to him for another four hours. Afterwards I told the truth to a reporter who asked the question and suddenly it is ‘Tom Hicks tried to get Jurgen Klinsmann’. George initiated it but we all participated.”
Are the co-owners as bad as each other or doth Hicks protest too much? One thing’s for sure, is going public about his concerns regarding Parry the best way to oust him at Anfield? After all, he needs the support of his fellow board members, not the general public (who wouldn’t give it to him anyway).
Tagged Under: Anfield, barcelona, benitez, gillett, hicks, klinsmann, Liverpool FC, rafael benitez, Rick Parry
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The Daily Mail reckons that Rafa B is set for a shock exit from Liverpool in the midst of all the bitchy trans-Atlantic backstabbing. Rafa is apparently furious over Rick Parry’s involvement with all that nasty Jurgen Klinsmann business, and is – according to the Daily Mail, so take this with a pinch of salt – ready to consider his own future. Quite how Rick Parry thinks that he is going to survive demands for his resignation from not only one of the two owners of the club, Tom Hicks, but also now from Rafa B, is beyond me – and we’ll leave it to the slavering salacious gossipmongers at the Mail to fill in the gaps. According to them Rafa B said:
‘I was surprised to read about some meeting with another manager. More to the point, I was surprised by who was apparently at that meeting.
‘I want answers. I feel my situation is being undermined by it, and that is why I want some clarification. I need to speak to members of the board. All of them. I don’t know when. Could it be a matter of days? It could be hours.’
And under fire owner Tom Hicks is also a tad riled up by Parry and his holier than thou attitude, and claims that Hicks’ attitude was ‘offensive’ saying:
‘I did not hear him say it was offensive when George Gillett gave his radio interview telling the world our relationship had become unbearable. I did not hear Gillett or Parry say they were the ones who set up the Klinsmann meeting, yet both were there, along with Foster Gillett, myself and my son. Rick allowed all the controversy to build up without taking any responsibility.’
All the malarkey should destabilise the club, but for some reason, the more messiness that goes on in the boardroom, the better Liverpool do on the pitch. At this rate Liverpool should hope for a permanent ugly revolution of bickering suits, who knows, if Rafa B leaves they may even improve!
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This Tom Hicks seems a likeable sort of fellow. The one that you’d want to be in charge of your football club, what with speaking to potential managers to replace Rafael Benitez and making public your dissatisfaction with the chief executive at your club, somebody who has been at the helm for ten years. The Daily Mail report that the Liverpool co-owner has repeated his calls for Rick Parry to step down with immediate effect. Apparently he’s just not up to the job.
Hicks said: “Rick Parry has been Liverpool’s CEO for 10 years and we haven’t won a league championship under his leadership. Our commercial revenues have not kept up with other top clubs during that time, which has made it very difficult to compete for the Premier League.
“After watching him operate, I came to the conclusion it was time to ask him to resign, due to his inability to manage an organisation, his seemingly arrogant attitude to our supporters and his lack of communication with Rafa.
“I reached my decision a few weeks ago but waited until after the games against Everton and Arsenal. It is important to try to have a new CEO in place by May so we can begin working with Rafa on player transfers.”
It’s hard to equate a lack of commercial revenue with not being able to challenge for the title. After all, Liverpool have been splashing the cash on the likes of Fernando Torres, Javier Mascherano and Ryan Babel in the past twelve months and it was generally acknowledged at the start of the season that they had a squad capable of winning the Premier League title. Once again, their hopes have gone, along with Rick Parry if Tom Hicks is to have his way.
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And who can blame him? All season long, Rafael Benitez has insisted he simply wants to focus what’s happening on the field of play and not what shenanigans are taking place between messrs Hicks and Gillett as they struggle for power over the Merseyside club. The Daily Mirror reports that the chubby Spaniard is refusing to be drawn into commenting on the latest state of play at Anfield, in a week where his team’s Champions League efforts should be sticking out like a sore thumb.
Asked to elaborate on the crisis which has gripped the Anfield club in the past 48 hours, Benitez had to evade giving a straight answer.
He said: “I understand why you have to ask me the question, but as I have told the players, we must be focused on football.”
“We have an important game on Sunday and we have to concentrate on that.”
However, in fairness to Benitez, considering that Rick Parry only found out that Hicks wanted him out on Sky Sports, it’s doubtful that he knows much more than the rest of us. It appears that Liverpool’s grey cloud of a season might have a silver lining if they can land themselves in a third Champions League final in the past four seasons. Nevertheless, the power struggle at Anfield has a good deal of mileage left yet.
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Unbelievable things have been happening at Anfield this season. In fact, it’s more accurate to say that they’ve been happening in the U-S of A on behalf of the Merseyside club and that’s probably what makes it all the more grating for Liverpool fans. After the Reds’ co-owners undermined Rafael Benitez earlier in the season, it was with an air of disbelief to discover that Tom Hicks had written to chief executive Rick Parry, asking him to step down.
The Guardian report that, as you might expect, the latter is far from pleased about this discovery, especially in a week where the Reds secured a famous European win against Arsenal, sending them through to the semi-final of the Champions League.
Parry earlier branded Hicks’ efforts to remove him from office as “offensive”. “I’ve not seen the letter,” he said. “You guys know a lot more about the letter than I do. My family saw it on Sky Sports, so they were delighted. This week, I shouldn’t be the story, the story should be the team. It’s offensive to the players, the manager, the fans, in the week when we had another great European triumph there’s more dirty linen being washed [in public].”
Meanwhile, it appears that Liverpool’s other co-owner, George Gillett, has thrown his support behind Parry. Little wonder, seeing as Parry is reported to have favoured him over Hicks on a number of occasions. Once again, the good name of Liverpool FC is being dragged through the mud for no good reason, surely the Moores family and Rick Parry are regretting the day that they agreed to sell the major shareholding to the American duo.
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Now this is some interesting news. On Thursday the Premier League announced this controversial plan of playing an extra round of 10 international matches abroad from the 2010-11 season and also stated that it had the unanimous backing of all the 20 Premiership clubs. But according to The Daily Telegraph, three clubs were not in favour of the proposal.
Liverpool, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are the three reported clubs who haven’t backed the Premier League’s plans although the Premier League stated that all the clubs have ratified the proposals.
But then again, while Liverpool chief executive did speak about caution before letting the move be carried out, Sunderland boss Roy Keane was quite overt in supporting the move. This indeed does seem strange. If Sunderland were indeed not in favour of the idea, then why would their manager publicly support it?
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Liverpool chairman Rick Parry is sounding cautious over an ambitious plan formulated by the English Premier League clubs to play 10 matches in cities across the world. LiverpoolFC TV quotes him as saying that although the plan looks healthy and innovative, the teams must take into consideration of playing 1 extra game in January since that could well increase the burden on the already exhausted players.
Parry says:
As a club, we would say the plans would need further examination. My personal view is that it raises concerns over the integrity of the competition. You’re talking about the introduction of a new dimension and new rules regarding playing a team three times and the seedings of certain teams.
Is the idea of playing 10 matches across the world a good one? Of course, the move is driven by commercial incentives more than anything but wouldn’t it also force the players to undertake long journeys and also perform at the peak of their powers when the busy schedule already makes him exhausted?
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