EPL News: Hodgson, Torres, Reina give no hope of revival to Liverpool fans- demand time and lowering of expectations this season (Part 1)
The Spanish goal keeper, Pepe Reina has asked Liverpool fans to lower their expectations from the club this season as realistically it doesn’t seem like they would win the English Premier League any sooner.
The Liverpool shot stopper appealed to the Reds’ fans to show some patience as Liverpool was currently not in a position to take over the English football by storm leave alone the position from where the former football rulers could take over the world.
Reina told reporters that the Red part of Merseyside has been facing financial troubles since the last season which have affected the Scouse a lot and have made them incapable of bringing in lustrously talented stars. It was this financial crunch at Liverpool
that forced its many players to change the club.
The reason for this crunch is the American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett’s unwillingness to invest in the club. Both of them took over the club along with a debt of 350 million pounds and therefore, under rueful circumstances they are trying to improvise
and clear that deficit.
They have been successful in lowering the debt to around 320 million pounds but it is expected that they won’t get much lower than that simply because they aren’t ready to invest anymore. They tasked the club’s chairman, Martin Broughton with its sale options
but soon enough Broughton reported that the fans shouldn’t get their hopes up as it would take around 18 months for the club’s sale to take place.
His statement was, however, ridiculed as just after a month into the summers a strong party stepped forward to take over the club in Manchester City fashion. The rich Sheikh’s certainly had the power to turn the club around 180 degrees but the negotiations
were soon dropped as both sides failed to agree on a price.
Nevertheless, there came yet another interested buyer, this time from a very unlikely place. The Chinese sports company QSL headed by a Hong Kong based businessman, Kenny Huang claimed a bid for the club and soon enough the negotiations started. QSL has
already invested in sports all around the globe. It also works with the Chinese government having a mutual contract with regards to funding sports projects. Also Huang owns the National Basketball and Baseball Leagues in China, therefore making him quite influential
on the marketing plane.
He has shares in the National Basketball Association of America but these are not the reasons why this deal also failed to occur. In fact, the main reason again was the disagreement on price. Hicks and Gillett insisted that the club was worth around 700
million pounds but this was actually the price two seasons back when Liverpool had finished 2nd in the English Premier League.
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