Accept the offer and go!

I have expressed the opinion through this blog that DIC do not offer a panacea for Liverpool’s ownership woes. My feeling is that the bind the club find themselves in is actually indicative of a more fundamental problem infecting the Premiership as a whole. Football clubs, once organically linked to the communities toward whom they contribute a sense of pride and belonging, are now simply investment opportunities for foreign capital.

However I also share with most Liverpool fans dismay at the present owners, who have disingenuously saddled the club with a large quantity of their debt and have proceeded to fall out despite the fact their tandem ownership is barely a year old. Hicks has publicly aired grievances with manager Rafa Benitez in a fashion that is inimical to traditions of the club and the pair have failed to provide sufficient backing to enable us to compete in the transfer market.

From the beginning it was my view that DIC offered more stability and a sounder financial footing. I was dismayed when the board favoured Gillett and Hicks bid, but like other fans, I was also prepared to suspend judgment until the pair had stamped their style of leadership on the club. When Fernando Torres arrived at Anfield it appeared that the Americans might offer the financial muscle to allow Liverpool to compete at the highest level.

Clearly these hopeful beginnings now seem a long time ago. A divided duopoly, saddling the club with repayments on their own investment and displaying a style of ownership unsympathetic to the club’s traditions, are simply not the hands in which the world’s greatest club should lie. DIC will eliminate the club’s debt and will show strength of purpose in growing their investment. Whilst ideally the club would re-enter local ownership, realistically the Share Liverpool scheme is not going to achieve its aims.

DIC offer the best hope for stable and sympathetic ownership at this moment in time. If the football club is going to be run as a business, at least it should be run as a good one. I wholeheartedly hope that Gillett and particularly Tom Hicks see sense tonight and accept DIC’s £400m offer. They will walk away with a handsome profit, which is more than they deserve from their brief tenure at the club.

Comments

Hernandez said…
I agree that whilst the DIC bid is not ideal, it can't be worse than what we have at the moment. Given the resentment amongst fans, they surely have no choice but to sell. Whilst they have taken on huge debts (as the Glazers did at Old Trafford) I think its slightly harsh to say they haven't stumped up the cash - they paid £12m, £26m, £6m and £18m for Babel, Torres, Skrtel and Mascherano respecively. But the one area in which they were supposed to specialise - the new stadium - they have failed to deliver.
6 March 2008 at 22:15
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