| El Salvador soccer player dies from gunshot wound A 19-year-old soccer player on El Salvador's championship team has died two weeks after being shot in the head during an attack. Nelson Rivera ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Broughton hopeful of sale next week • Anfield redevelopment on cards rather than new stadium• Proposed new owners intend to clear all 'major' debtMartin Broughton, the Liverpool chairman, has insisted that an attempt by the club's owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett to frustrate the sale of the club to John W Henry's New England Sports Ventures group by changing the board, is a "flagrant abuse" of "written undertakings" and that he is the only person entitled to do such a thing.The Liverpool Echo reported that Broughton believes the NESV group to be the "winners". It also reports that the deal with the parent company of the Boston Red Sox baseball club is worth around £300m, that the prospective new owners will deal with the club's "major" debt (£200m) and that they are considering re-developing Anfield, rather than moving to a new stadium.In an interview on the Liverpool website the chairman was asked about a statement published last night claiming that the owners had sought to remove Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre from the Board, Broughton said: "The court will ultimately decide whether the owners were successful. The reasoning behind it was that the owners felt we were reviewing two bids which they considered undervalued the club and therefore they wished to remove Christian and Ian and replace them with Mack Hicks, who is Tom's son, and Lori McCutcheon, who also works with him."We don't think it was valid to do it. 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."Broughton revealed he was confident about the NESV deal: "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."On the club's debt, Broughton added: "All of the acquisition debt that was involved in the current owners acquisition will be removed completely. We'll still have what we call normal working capital debt and there's a facility there for the new stadium which will remain in place, but to all intents and purposes all the major debt that has been causing our problem has been paid off." It would leave £37m of external debt, the second lowest in the Premier League.The proposed new owners have not commented on squad investment but Broughton believes there is cause for optimism: "They don't want any hostages to fortune, very sensibly, so they're not going to make any comments about how much or anything like that. But this goes back to the winning mentality. I think the demonstration is: let's look at what they have done at Boston, what they said in Boston, what they have done in terms of investing in players – and I think you get a high degree of confidence of their willingness to do that."While the NESV group currently "haven't finalised their view whether that should be the new stadium or whether there are still opportunities to build at Anfield itself," said Broughton, "there's definitely a commitment to invest in a stadium and we will finish up with a 60,000-plus seater."For the sale to be finalised a court judgment is required to declare: "That we did act validly in completing the sale agreement," said Broughton. Premier League approval is then the final obstacle but the chairman said: "I'm certain that's not going to be an issue. There are one or two minor things like that but the key issue is the court, which should meet I would think next week sometime. That is the most likely time, in short order."LiverpoolJohn W HenryPremier Leagueguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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