David Moores and George Gillett before the takeover
Former Liverpool chairman David Moores has broken his silence over the disastrous American ownership of Liverpool Football Club insisting he ‘regrets selling’ to Tom Hicks and George Gillett and suggesting the owners should be realistic about the price of the club and ‘stop punishing the fans.’
A letter was sent yesterday to The Times Sports Editor after a request from the newspaper for an interview.
David Moores sold the club to Hicks and Gillett for £160M in January 2007 after being told the owners were ready to start work on the stadium, hand the manager significant transfer funds and would not place debt on to the club.
Liverpool, in debt of about £40M in 2007, are now in £350M of debt and pay £1M in interest alone every 9 days (enough to pay for 7 El Nino’s).
Moores started out reflecting on the 5 year anniversary of Istanbul and how the club has gone backwards since that day.
I hope against hope that Messrs Gillett and Hicks will see this letter, or some portion of it, and do the right thing.
He went on to outline how his priority was always the club, how his ethos was to support the manager as best he could, but after the 2002/03 season he realised that Liverpool needed a new stadium to be able to compete at the top. Football was no longer, he said, about a wealthy local fan’s deep pockets, and more about turning a profit. He said he came to realise that he simply didn’t have the financial firepower to improve Liverpool’s circumstances.
In fact the only way he could have done so, ironically, is buying putting the club in debt which he was keen to avoid.
A long 4 year search took place for a new owner with the right mentality. Robert Kraft, Thaksin Shinawatra and DIC were all heavily involved. Kraft failed to take the bid further, Thaksin was rejected for ethical reasons and DIC had plans to put the club in up to £300M of debt to fund the new stadium.
In the end George Gillett, a man who had impressed him, came back with Tom Hicks – a man they admit they did not investigate as forensically as they could. The former Liverpool chairman is clearly upset with the fact that the owners basically lied as to their intentions with the club.
Speaking of the owners deception he said:
I doubt there’s any procedure available that will legislate for a guy you’ve come to trust looking you in the eye, telling you one thing and doing the exact opposite.
David Moores concluded his letter with:
There’s also the very real possibility that, in speaking out, I might derail the process that many believe I can positively effect. But it has been hard for me, sitting mute on the sidelines as the club I love suffers one blow after another. Since resigning from the board I have not set foot inside Anfield – and it hurts. I hugely regret selling the club to George Gillett and Tom Hicks. I believe that, at best, they have bitten off much more than they can chew. Giving them that benefit of the doubt – that they started off with grand ideals that they were never realistically going to achieve – I call upon them now to stand back, accept their limitations as joint owners of Liverpool Football Club, acknowledge their role in the club‘s current demise, and stand aside, with dignity, to allow someone else to take up the challenge. Don’t punish the club’s supporters any more – God knows they’ve taken enough. Take an offer, be realistic over the price, make it possible. Let the club go. It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to concede for the greater good.
** Anfield Online echoes his final comments. The owners position at the club is untenable. Not only are they damaging their own fragile reputations but they are also damaging Liverpool Football Club and the millions of its supporters. The debt mountain they have placed on the club is nothing short of a disgrace. Their £600M valuation of the club is ridiculous. We believe a market valuation of £350M to still be generous. We will remain committed to all efforts to remove them from the club and install owners who buy the club with their own funds, or at worst with funding that will not use Liverpool Football Club as collateral.
Only then with the Liverbird rise from the ashes.