Its been an open secret in soccer that Liverpool's two wealthy American owners, George Glllett Jr. and Thomas O. Hicks have been at odds over ownership of the team they bought 50-50 for $421 million last year.
Now comes confirmation from an interview with a Toronto sports radio station, Fan 590. The pair's partnership, Gillett said, "has been unworkable for some time."
And Gillett threw out a new possibility for the club's future ownership: "maybe we'll think about buying" Hicks' stake.
The two men had been in talks until earlier this month with Dubai International Capital, the private-equity arm of Dubai Holdings, owned by Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, and which they beat out for control of the club last year. Dubai International had made a new offer that valued Liverpool at $800 million, and would have required the sale of Gillett's stake. The talks foundered over control and valuations and Hicks ended them. Gillett said Hicks had threatened to block any separate sale of his stake.
Gillett also said he had been willing to sell to Hicks, too, but that Hicks had taken too long to do a deal and the animosity of Liverpool fans in the interim now made any deal impossible.
Many Liverpool supporters were unhappy when the pair bought the club fearing a repeat of the Glazer family's leveraging of rival Manchester United. They had those fears reinforced in January when Hicks and Gillett signed a £350 million ($696.6 million) re-financing of the loans they took out to buy the club that will saddle the team with £150 million in debt.
Fans became further enraged when Hicks revealed they had approached the former Germany coach Jürgen Klinsmann to replace Rafael Benítez as manager.
A group called Share Liverpool FC has since announced plans to try to buy the club from its owners by raising £500 million from fans.
Gillett told Fan 590 that he and his family had received up to 2,000 e-mails a week, 95% of which, he said, were critical of Hicks (the other 5% of both of them), and that his family had received death threats in the middle of the night.
The "thing that angers [Liverpool fans] the most is that I might sell even one share of stock to my partner. They do not want him to have controlling interest in the club." One arrangement being discussed with Dubai International was that Gillett would sell a 1% stake to Hicks, giving him 51%, and his other 49% to Dubai International.
Whether Gillett buys or sells, Liverpool is clearly in play. "There are pieces on the chess board being moved, or being contemplated to be moved, that it would not be helpful for us or the club to comment," he says.
And if not Liverpool, then perhaps Montreal. Gillett says he has told Major League Soccer he would be interested in owning a franchise there where he already has a hockey team, the Canadiens.
from Forbes.com Staff
Tags: Gillett Hicks Liverpool
