Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton hits out at Hicks and Gillett
Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton has launched a scathing attack on club owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett for attempting to block the new takeover of the club.
The Reds have agreed a deal to sell to New England Sports Ventures [NESV], another American-based company and the owners of baseball team the Boston Red Sox, after three of Liverpool’s five man board – including Broughton – okayed the deal, outvoting Hicks and Gillett by three to two in the process.
After learning of the decision to side with NESV rather than their preferred choice – believed to be an Asian consortium who would certainly have made them more money – Hicks and Gillett have tried to remove managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre from the board, seeking to replace them with Hicks’ son Mack and Lori Kay McCutcheon, vice president of Hicks Holdings. Unsurprisingly, Broughton has hit out at such behaviour.
“At the last moment when it does not pay them enough,” said Broughton, “they have chosen not to do it [sell].
“I think it is a great pity that at the end of an exhaustive process that has been seeking a competitive bid, that they are not going to take the last opportunity to be the 'good guys' and pass over Liverpool to the right owners.
“That is what they promised to do, what they said all along they would do.”
That they haven’t hasn’t come as a great surprise to Reds fans, who certainly don’t view the pair as “good guys” following their decision to heap masses of debt onto the club – much of it owed to the Royal Bank of Scotland – since they took ownership three-and-a-half years ago.
Now the pair, entirely in keeping with their sanctimonious characters, have started legal proceedings to remove Purslow and Ayre from the board – therefore transforming the vote from three to two against their proposal into four to one in favour. Broughton, though, doesn’t feel they have a chance of winning a court case.
“The court will ultimately decide whether the owners were successful,” he said.
“Essentially when I took the role they gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings.”
Despite the looming legal proceedings, Liverpool have informed the Premier League of an intended sale, and Broughton remains confident both that the sale will go through, and that NESV will prove to be the right owners for the club.
“The key thing is the court case,” he said. “We need to go to the court to get a declaratory judgement, which is for the court to declare that we did act validly in completing the sale agreement, and then the buyers can complete the sale.
“I am confident. I wouldn't have taken the Board through that process [Hicks and Gillett’s attempts to oust Purslow and Ayre] if I hadn't been confident. I wouldn't have exposed everybody to that risk if I hadn't been confident, but you can never be certain. These things are legal judgements. We have been properly advised and I am confident.
“New England have a lot of experience in developing, investing in and taking Boston Red Sox - as the closest parallel - from being a club with a wonderful history, a wonderful tradition that had lost the winning way, and bringing it back to being a winner. Their commitment to winning is what it's all about there and they've extended it from Boston Red Sox to Nascar and other things, but Red Sox is the main one.
“I have been meeting them now for several weeks in Boston, in Liverpool, in London, and I feel they are totally committed to supporting and getting the winning mentality back into the team.”
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