The Anfield saga - who is really buying Liverpool Football Club?

Three and a half years since the infamous American duo, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, first marched into Anfield with plans of such grandeur, their tenure as co-owners of Liverpool appears to be coming to an end. Anyone who has followed the goings-on at Liverpool over that time period, and especially over the last six months, would be unwise to think the sale (to whoever it may be) will be seamless. It had appeared Chinese businessman Kenny Huang was at the head of the queue to purchase one of the biggest institutes of English football, but today, Syrian businessman Yayha Kirdi claims his consortium Canadian and Middle East investors is 'in the final stages of negotiation to buy Liverpool Football Club.'
All this after new chairman, and British Airways boss, Martin Broughton, announced last week that the club had received six bids to buy the club, then you get the picture the long suffering Liverpool fans are not at the end of the road just yet. There have been false dawns before, and the fans especially will be hoping this is not another one. But if the club are to keep hold of the likes of Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina beyond this season, and attract more players of the quality of Joe Cole, then the board will hope they find the right man, whoever it is.
The problem in pushing throught a sale will most likely be those pesky Americans. After the personal debt they have saddled the club with, Mr Hicks and Mr Gillett are demanding the massively unreasonable price of £800 million for a struggling business. Analysts say £325 million is a more reasonable figure, while Mr Huang, head of Hong Kong-based investment company QSL Sports, is willing to pay £350 million for Liverpool. Despite the fact the Americans owe the Royal Bank of Scotland £237 million, this bid may still fall short of the sum the current owners desire.
After all talk of a sale went quiet over the summer, with the World Cup, the departure of manager Rafael Benitez and the arrival of Roy Hodgson as his replacement, but the race for the right to be Liverpool owners has really intensified in the last week. As is often the case in modern football, the fact that there are so many parties with a vested interest in the sale (and the figure) can only serve to complicate matters. We all know the motives of Hicks and Gillett, but then there is all RBS, who are keen to recoup the money they loaned to the Americans. Chairman Broughton was brought in, along with Barclays Capital, to facilitate the sale of the club for the best price but also to the right man (or men). And last but not least, there is the club itself, being represented by managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre. They, along with everyone else on the inside of the club, will be keen to end the shenanigans of the last few years, and bring in owners who pump money into the playing side of the club, clear the debt and move forward with the Stanley Park stadium plans.
But as I said, the people with less than wholesome motives are Hicks and Gillett. To even break even by selling the club, the Americans would have to garner a price of £362 million. But given that the majority of the funds used to purchase the club seem to have been from borrowings, it is debatable how much of that investment has been from their own pocket. If they make any kind of profit on the club, it will cause outrage among the supporters, and will be a damning indictment on the due dilligence process which has been defended by former owner David Moores, and on more general issues regarding English football club takeovers and ownership. The Americans will be delighted there are so many interested parties, so they can drive the price up as high as possible and they can drain the last drops out of the great institution they looked like leading on the road to ruin for so long.
As if the situation is not complicated enough, the waters are muddied further by the Premier League's new 'fit and proper person tests.' In the long run this seems like it will be for the best - the measures are being introduced to tighten up the ownership and financial management of clubs. But, with Broughton hoping to push a sale through by the end of the transfer window on August 31 and the Premier League requiring new owners to pass the fit and proper person test. This lasts for ten days, including a brand new named owners and directors test. The club needs to get its skates on in that respect, but for Liverpool, and football in general, it is no bad thing that the financial guidelines have been tightened. With Portsmouth's problems well documented, club's will be forced to submit far more detailed financial records to the Premier League. This might be good for the integrity of the game, and the future of Liverpool Football Club, but it makes the timescales involved that much tighter, with under a month until the close of the transfer window, and with only one player (Scottish defender Danny Wilson from Rangers for £2 million) purchased for cash this summer.
Just when it seemed like Mr Huang was the clear leader in the race, Mr Kirdi's announcement that a deal is imminent with his consortium has thrown another spanner in the works. He announced, 'an agreement has been reached on all major terms including the purchase price, repayment of the existing bank debt and the financing of a new stadium in Liverpool's Stanley Park.' This all smacked of a triumphalist message, especially when you consider Mr Kirdi promised there would be money available to Hodgson for the playing squad, and Mr Huang declared his business 'has declared its formal interest but has made no bid.' But in a saga which is fast approaching anything as far fetched as British television could throw up, this may well be a smokescreen planted by the current owners to drive up the figure of a potential sale. After his name appeared in the financial pages of a Sunday newspaper at the weekend, it soon became apparent he is close to one of Mr Gillett's son. So only time will tell if his interest is real and genuine.
As anyone who's read the sports pages of newspapers or watched the news knows, potential bids from China and Syria are not the only ones which have been courted by Mr Broughton, Mr Purslow and co - names such Dubai International Capital, the Rhone Group and Al-Kharafi family from Kuwait have been synonomous with attempting to purchase the club in the past few months. Liverpool is still a very attractive option when it comes to potential foreign ownership - of the traditional big four clubs, they are the only one which is currently on the market, and possibly for a below market price due to the well publicised problems of the last year especially, most notably failure to qualify for the Champions League. The signing of a player of Joe Cole's quality show that while the money might not currently be in the coffers (hence the need for investment) the allure of the club is alive and kicking. As Cole himself said on joining on a free transfer this summer, 'But there will certainly be a great deal of caution within the walls of Anfield, given the catastrophe of the last sale of the club. Moores and then-chief executive Rick Parry saw the pounds (or dollar) signs in their eyes when pushing through the sale of the club to Hicks and Gillett in February 2007. The decision-making panel will be wise to heed the mistakes made by their predecessors - and then, just maybe, the Anfield hoards can look forward to the future with a sense of optimism.