| Hicks and Gillett find pain at Anfield Rather than making off from Liverpool with wads of cash, Tom Hicks and George Gillett are set to get their fingers burnedWarning: the value of your investment can go down as well as up. Especially if you mumble the words to You'll Never Walk Alone, neglect to construct a stadium you promised to start "within 60 days" and play motorway chicken with the banks while sliding towards a relegation zone.In an ordered football world Tom Hicks and George Gillett would have been sent here to discourage les autres. It was about time a speculator took a caning. Picture the mirth in business circles if Tom & Jerry (their alternative titles) go down for the £144m they thought would shoot back to them with a vast premium attached. That was no egg they were nesting on. It was a cartoon time bomb.Lose-lose is the outcome facing Liverpool's absentee landlords. If the sale to New England Sports Ventures goes through and Anfield is twinned with Fenway Park then the £300m price will not cover their £144m injection plus the £237m borrowed from the Royal Bank of Scotland. If Liverpool fall into the arms of their creditors then John W Henry's consortium will collect the keys sharpish, and Hicks and Gillett will rue the day they mistook the Premier League for an under-exploited, potentially rich digital/multimedia gold mine.John W Henry (we must respect the W) must see it that way, too, else he would have not have bounced down from the bleachers to create "synergy" between Liverpool and the Red Sox. We played this game a few years back when Manchester United strapped themselves to the New York Yankees, but that went the way of many joint-branding capers. This time we see the restlessness of the American sports market claim another English institution for reasons that have nothing to do with tycoon vanity.Henry is a futures obsessive who spent nine months with a pocket calculator testing a man called WD Gann's commodity markets model against historical data. His compulsion is predicting and exploiting price moves. Speculators gamble on Premier League clubs when they consider them to be good value relative to potential future income – in this case from television deals, mobile phone streaming, internet revenues and all the rest. They "sweat the asset", to use another disagreeable banking phrase.Value-betting was the impulse, after all, that prompted JP McManus and John Magnier, the so-called Coolmore mafia, to buy a lump of United and then sell it on. Since Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi are pseudo-philanthropists with private motivations, the current impetus derives from American empire-builders.Before NESV pounced, Don Garber, the head of Major League Soccer in America, told the BBC: "There's real intrigue with the English Premier League among US sportsmen. There's a belief that there's a valuable global franchise with these clubs. More and more American owners will look to invest overseas."Already Randy Lerner rules at Aston Villa, Stan Kroenke owns almost 30% of Arsenal and the Glazers preside over Manchester United. Tom Wolfe's Masters of the Universe say the Hicks-Gillett ownership model merely tipped the balance too far towards short-term borrowing, without the necessary success on the pitch to support the debt.On the list of owners who have left town with saddlebags full from sales are Alan Sugar (Spurs), Martin Edwards (United), David Dein (Arsenal), Ken Bates (Chelsea), Thaksin Shinawatra (Manchester City), Freddy Shepherd (Newcastle United) and David Moores of Liverpool.Doubtless Tom and Jerry expected to join them at the get-out party. But football was bound to bite back. The market was predestined to "realign" itself and catch someone in its jaws. It came for Hicks and Gillett as Liverpool made their worst start to a season for 57 years, dressing-room morale collapsed and a state-owned bank was obliged to confront its duty not to help two profiteers to ruin an important social and sporting institution.Those perpetuating the myth that players are indifferent to the identity of those who pay their wages ignore the reality that the modern millionaire footballer can smell decline, smell fear, from 10 miles away. With that scent fouling the air he observes the loss of a Xabi Alonso or a Javier Mascherano – and the recruitment of inferior replacements – and calls his agent, at first to moan, then to explore the potential for escape. Imagine how Christian Poulsen and Raul Meireles feel, walking into this burlesque.Yet the end is visible, liberation is close, because the £237m RBS loan, repayable a week today, has assumed a cleansing force. For once a debt has the power not to destroy but to save. This is not to say that annexation by the Red Sox is a panacea. All the while the motive is to use Premier League clubs as juice-squeezers there ought to be mistrust. At least this time there is a price on greed: that £144m loss, which is retribution.LiverpoolJohn W HenryBusinessPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Hatem Ben Arfa refuses to let Nigel de Jong visit him in hospital after horror tackle Hatem Ben Arfa has rejected Nigel de Jong's attempts to visit him in hospital after suffering a double leg break in tackle. telegraph.co.uk |
Chelsea 2-0 Wolves Goals from Florent Malouda and Salomon Kalou extended Chelsea's 100 per cent record at Stamford Bridge but this was far from a perfect display by the champions. Wolves did not come on a mere damage limitation exercise. They began boldly and virtually monopolised possession for the first five minutes, which were played almost entirely in their hosts' half.However, Chelsea, who have yet to concede a goal at home this season, remained unruffled throughout that brazen start by the visitors and soon, with minimal effort, gained a degree of control. At no point, however, could they be considered dominant and their slovenliness at times placed their victory in jeopardy.The home team did produce the game's first shot on target, in the 11th minute, but Marcus Hahnemann tipped behind the blast from José Bosingwa, the right-back who was making his first start after almost a year out with torn knee ligaments.Chelsea have made a habit of swatting aside lesser teams this season but here they were guilty of some negligent breaches of routine as Wolves, always tidy and thoughtful if a little too predictable, were able to forge intermittent chances.In the 19th minute Dave Edwards arrived unmarked in the Chelsea box to connect with a Kevin Foley cross from the right. Petr Cech blocked his downward header. Wolves replicated that manoeuvre a couple of minutes later and Cech was again forced to intervene.Within seconds of that, however, Chelsea tore down the other end and opened the scoring, Malouda sidefooting into the net from 10 yards after being teed up by Yuri Zhirkov.Nicolas Anelka fired into the side-netting from the edge of the area after a flowing move in the 26th minute and Didier Drogba went close after a short free-kick from Malouda ten minutes later. Between those two efforts Nenad Milijas kept Cech on his toes with a couple of shots from long range. Wolves' best chance came just before the break, when Kevin Doyle eluded his marker but mis-timed his header after a dainty chip from Matthew Jarvis.Those opportunities were enough to convince Mick McCarthy, the Wolves manager, that the game was not lost and he made a positive substitution at half-time, withdrawing Jelle van Damme to enable Stephen Hunt to make his injury-delayed debut following his summer move from Hull. The Irish winger was greeted with scornful boos by the Stamford Bridge faithful, who evidently still hold him responsible for the fractured skull suffered by Cech in a collision with Hunt in 2006. Hunt nearly made himself even more unpopular by scoring against the home team within moments of his entrance, but Michael Essien cleared his diving header off the line in the 47th minute.By this stage Chelsea had slipped into a lethargy that visibly dismayed Carlo Ancelotti on the sidelines. In the 52nd minute Doyle was able to conjure room for a shot from the edge of the area, demanding another smart save from Cech.Essien led the attempts to wake Chelsea up. He went on one trademark charge through midfield in the 58th minute, only for his shot from the edge of the area to be inadvertently blocked by Malouda. Just after the hour mark he ventured forward again, and this time fed Anelka, who rifled over from 20 yards.Three minutes later came the most compelling indication yet that Chelsea were below par, as Drogba raced on to a long pass from Branislav Ivanovic and Hahnemann was stranded outside his box. Whether the striker lifted it over the keeper or went around him, a goal seemed certain but instead Drogba ran straight into the American, who did not need his hands to nick the ball away.Kalou was introduced late on in an attempt to kill Wolves off and he duly did so in the 81st minute. Clever interplay with Drogba and Essien prised the Wolves defence apart, leaving Kalou to slot the ball calmly under Hahnemann from eight yards.Premier LeagueChelseaWolverhampton WanderersPaul Doyleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Portsmouth future looks brighter as Sacha Gaydamak reveals deal to save club close Portsmouth near salvation as lawyers representing Sacha Gaydamak reveal agreement with club to be signed tonight. telegraph.co.uk |
Arsenal Win 3 - 0 as Early Red Card Hamstrings Man City LONDON (Reuters) - Arsenal, with Cesc Fabregas back pulling their strings, took full advantage of an 85-minute one-man advantage when they beat Manchester City 3-0 in a bruising Premier League battle at Eastlands Sunday. feeds.nytimes.com |