Rafa Could Have New Gaffers at Liverpool

By: Daryl | January 13th, 2008

Rafa waiting for new Gaffa Good news for Rafa Benitez today, as he could very soon be rid of the miserly billionaires in charge of Liverpool. Despite having all the money in the world, Tom Hicks and George Gillett are struggling to refinance the £350 million debt they acquired in buying the club. The pair borrowed heavily from the Royal Bank of Scotland to buy Liverpool, but seem to have underestimated the cost of building a new stadium, Rafa’s thirst for buying players (which he needs) and the current financial climate (which I don’t really understand, but hear is “bad.”)

Some of that £350 million debt is due next month, and Hicks and Gillett are apparently trying to shift the burden away from their pockets and onto the club. Basically, if I understand this correctly, they want to own Liverpool Football Club but don’t want to spend any money, and doing that is proving a lot tougher than they suspected and they may be tempted to sell up instead.

If they do decide to sell (fingers crossed Rafa) then the likely buyers would be Arab investment group, Dubai International Capital, who have been linked with a £500 million offer for the club, and were in the running to take over before Hicks and Gillett beat them to it last year.

It’s not clear whether D.I.C. would be any more generous with the transfer kitty or any better disposed towards Benitez, but the Liverpool boss would probably be keen to roll the dice and see what happens. Importantly, the D.I.C. is headed by Sameer Al Ansari, a Liverpool fan.

In the immediate future, this puts a big dark cloud over Liverpool’s January shopping. With the club’s future uncertain there’s not much chance of Benitez being able to get in the players he wants, unless he can do some wheeling and dealing.

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Category: English Premier League

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Diane

It was a mistake for the LFC shareholders to be charmed by personal bonuses of a few thousand pounds each (or many thousand if a few influential cases) to go with Hicks and Gillett, even after they had already come to a basic agreement with D.I.C.
"The Fans" were allegedly upset that D.I.C. were looking at the market value of the club after they spent whatever they planned to invest on the roster and in the infrastructure -- including the new stadium. Any business would do that, clearly Hicks and Gillett have been busy counting on their fingers since day one, and there's never a guarantee that any owner is in it for the long haul. At least Ansari was already known as a die-hard fan, AND he had a lot of cash in his pocket instead of just the ability to borrow.
Those who had seen Hicks and Gillett screw up in the States were pretty surprised about the decision, but hoped we were wrong. If they're caught short, as they've been before, I hope they get out and LFC get some more stable owners in quick.