| Sale of Liverpool Soccer Team Dissolves Into Chaos A new bidder, the Singapore billionaire Peter Lim, has emerged for Liverpool, a financially troubled English soccer team. feeds.nytimes.com |
Liverpool may not have seen the last of Tom Hicks and George Gillett • Sports lawyer suggests pair could claim for damages• Andrew Nixon says court ruling was not inevitableLiverpool may not have seen the last of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, according to the sports lawyer Andrew Nixon.The American owners today lost their high court bid to block the football club's proposed £300m sale to New England Sports Ventures, with Mr Justice Floyd telling them it would be "inappropriate" to appeal against the decision. Despite that warning, a bid to overturn the verdict still remains a possibility if Hicks and Gillett take the case to the court of appeal. However Nixon, an associate for Thomas Eggar LLP, believes Hicks and Gillett are more likely to launch a claim for damages against Liverpool in order to recoup some of their financial losses."The judge made it clear that he thinks any appeal would be inappropriate so, while it remains an option, Hicks and Gillett's more realistic option is a claim for damages," Nixon said. "They may argue they have sustained losses as a result of the board's actions and believe Liverpool to be more valuable than £300m."That would give Hicks and Gillett time to get their house in order. They will still lose the football club but if they are going to recoup some money, which is the most important objective for them, that might be the way to go. I don't expect them to let this lie. However the verdict is a significant victory for Liverpool. The court has effectively ruled that Hicks and Gillett are not entitled to stand in the way of any sale by the Liverpool board."The judge arrived at his decision by declaring that in attempting to sack two members of the Liverpool board with the intention of replacing them with their own men, Hicks and Gillett had been guilty of the "clearest possible breach" of a contract they had signed with RBS as part of a refinancing agreement last April. However Nixon does not believe the verdict was guaranteed to go RBS's way."With a contract in place no verdict is inevitable," he said. "It's easy to say in hindsight that this would happen. But the contract clearly provided evidence to the court in favour of the Liverpool board and it was always going to be hard for Hicks and Gillett to argue around that. They signed it to say that they would agree to any decision made by the board. They tried to argue that a sub-committee was involved and so the board had breached the contract before they did, but the court has seen it the other way."LiverpoolBusinessguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Serie A strike threat rears head again Contract talks between the Italian players' association and Serie A have stalled, again raising the possibility of a strike. cbc.ca |
Freeman to Speak to FIFA on Behalf of US WCup Bid Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman will join former President Bill Clinton in making the final presentation to FIFA's executive committee of the U.S. bid to host the 2022 World Cup. feeds.nytimes.com |
Five things we learned this weekend Tottenham's spirit mirrors Manchester United's in 1999 while Nani is stepping out of Cristiano Ronaldo's shadowTottenham have the belief of United in 1998-99Tottenham once again came from behind yesterday, this time to beat Liverpool 2-1, and are beginning to resemble Manchester United in their treble-winning season 11 years ago. Not perhaps in the quality of the players they have at their disposal but at least in the way they believe they can come back to win any game, whatever the scoreline they are trailing by. And yesterday Jermain Defoe (who has surely taken his last penalty for Spurs now) said in a newspaper interview that he is trying to infuse the United mentality at White Hart Lane."You have to believe you can win every game. I remember when I first got into the England squad, training was mad. The Man United players, even in training and in little five-a-sides, wanted to win every game. And if they didn't win, they were moaning and moaning; it was amazing. Sometimes they'd still be talking about it over dinner. I think that's a great thing to have and I think it's important that we get that."It is a long way to go – and nobody surely believes Spurs are going to win the treble this season – but they have done remarkably well so far. They are six points off the league leaders and through to the Champions League last 16. Not bad at this stage of the season.Sol Campbell is still a very good defenderThe defender's spell at Newcastle could hardly have got off to a worse start. Within days of turning up for pre-season training he called some of the club's fans 'idiots' after they had suggested he was overweight. "Don't they know I have just got married and been on honeymoon?" he fumed. "My message is simple to all the knockers: I am knuckling down and want to play my football with a great club and a great manager. Then you can judge me."Judging from yesterday's performance against the champions Chelsea, maybe it is time to give Campbell some credit. Aided by a composed Steven Taylor, his was a mosty assured performance blighted only by a cumbersome turn when Salomon Kalou scored the equaliser for the visitors. There were crunching tackles, good positioning and several towering headers. Considering he was up against Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, the 36-year-old did everything the manager, Chris Hughton, could have wanted from him.Arsenal won't win the league with an all-French back fourFor two consecutive Premier League matches Arsène Wenger has selected an entirely French back four: Bacary Sagna, Sébastien Squillaci, Laurent Koscielny and Gaël Clichy. The result? Five goals conceded. True, this is not Wenger's first-choice defence (he would rather have a free-scoring Belgian international in the centre but that free-scoring Belgian international seems to have disappeared from the face of earth) but it is not far from it.Would Johan Djourou been able to make much of a difference? Probably not. A week ago Arsenal conceded three against Tottenham and on Saturday they leaked two more against Aston Villa. They won one of the games but everyone knows you need a strong central defensive partnership to win the league (think Hansen-Lawrenson, Adams-Keown, Bruce-Pallister, Stam-anyone, Terry-Carvalho and so on) and Arsenal simply do not have that this season – even if they buy Gary Cahill in January.Nani is the new Cristiano Ronaldo (well, almost)LuÃs Carlos Almeida da Cunha was always going to be put in the spotlight when Cristiano Ronaldo left Manchester United. One Portuguese winger thrown in to replace another Portuguese winger. It was an unfortunate situation for Nani, who was always going to struggle in comparison with Ronaldo. But, after three fairly inauspicious seasons with United, he is finally making important contributions.Nani has five league goals this season (as many as in the two previous full campaigns) and, even more importantly, he has set up a further 10 goals for United in the league this season. That is two more than anyone else in the league. United have always relied on midfielders scoring goals and this season (especially with Antonio Valencia injured and Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes getting forward less often) it may be Nani's turn to be the main man.Post-match press conferences are a waste of timeMost managers will always try to defend their players (step forward Arsène Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson in particular) but what is the point of post-match interviews when what is said is clearly gibberish? Step forward Roberto Mancini, who after Manchester City's 1-1 draw away to Stoke City said: "We played very well and deserved to win. We played some fantastic football in the second half."Fact one: City did not deserve to win because they were pretty abject for at least 45 minutes. Fact two: City were not fantastic in the second half. They had some good passages of play but fantastic is Barcelona's first 20 minutes at Arsenal last season. City were nowhere near that. And by the way Tuncay Sanli is far too good a footballer to be spending most of his time on a substitutes' bench.Premier LeagueSol CampbellNewcastle UnitedManchester UnitedArsenalStoke CityRoberto ManciniManchester CityTottenham HotspurMarcus Christensonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |