The Rebirth of Liverpool Football Club

Although people had be aware since mid-afternoon that something was going on, it was only when the statement below was posted onto the LFC TV website.
The Board of Directors have received two excellent financial offers to buy the Club that would repay all its long-term debt. A Board meeting was called today to review these bids and approve a sale. Shortly prior to the meeting, the owners - Tom Hicks and George Gillett - sought to remove Managing Director Christian Purslow and Commercial Director Ian Ayre from the Board, seeking to replace them with Mack Hicks and Lori Kay McCutcheon.

This matter is now subject to legal review and a further announcement will be made in due course.
This set off a chain of events that would result in a night of very little sleep for the media and supporters alike. Telephones were forever ringing along with a huge mountain of texts and emails that were being written as well as answered. Everyone was clinging to every word that had been said earlier and the statement finally arrived at 7.00 a.m. the following morning.
I am delighted that we have been able to successfully conclude the sale process which has been thorough and extensive. The Board decided to accept NESV's

Proposal on the basis that it best met the criteria we set out originally for a suitable new owner. NESV's philosophy is all about winning and they have fully demonstrated that at Red Sox.

"We've met them in Boston, London and Liverpool over several weeks and I am immensely impressed with what they have achieved and with their vision for Liverpool Football Club.

"By removing the burden of acquisition debt, this offer allows us to focus on investment in the team. I am only disappointed that the owners have tried everything to prevent the deal from happening and that we need to go through legal proceedings in order to complete the sale."

This was the news that every Liverpool supporter had been waiting for more or less from the day that Tom Hicks and George Gillett began their tenure at Liverpool Football Club. A tenure that was to bring a once great club down onto its knees and leave it loaded with a massive debt. All was not well though and Tom Hicks refused to accept the sale declaring the board illegal as he had reconstituted it. Martin Broughton, who has acted with the upmost decorium throughout, immediately said that the club would go to court because on his appointment to the board in April, an amendment to the Articles of Association was made which gave him total control over all matters relating to the club and that included its sale.

An application was then made to the High Court in London and with the prospect of The Royal Bank of Scotland calling in the loans on 15th October 2010 it had to be quick. There were several dates floating around, but it was finally announced that Liverpool would go to court on Tuesday 12th October 2010.

And so it began. Liverpool had engaged the services of Lord Grabiner QC who according to his pedigree was very good at this type of case. The QC for Tom Hicks and George Gillett was thought to be equally as good. This was as everyone knew going to be a fight that Tom and George were not going to give up easily.

Liverpool Supporters being Liverpool supporters wanted to be at the High Court to witness hopefully the demise of their most hated owners and the Spirit of Shankly began to make travel arrangements. Later on the Monday evening though they received a message saying that Liverpool were going to ask for an adjournment and the hearing was not expected to last longer than 10 minutes. This led to the transport being cancelled and everyone wondering what was going on. Still Tuesday morning brought more surprises.

The case had been moved into a larger court, quite possibly due to the amount of people expected and was listed as RBS v Hicks and Others, rather than Broughton v Hicks. The judge was Mr Justice Floyd who again was very renowned and would not stand for any nonsense. It started on time and it very quickly became apparent that something had changed overnight. It transpired later in the day that Tom Hicks had decided to sue RBS, Martin, Christian and Ian, which is why there was such a large presence of lawyers in the court.

The QC for Tom Hicks was allowed to put their arguments across first and people began to notice that several things did not add up. It would take Lord Grabiner QC to make sense of it though after lunch.

The lunch break of around 40 minutes quickly passed and he began. He tore everything that Tom Hicks had submitted through his QC to the court apart and as soon as it was revealed that Mack Hicks took part in a board meeting that he had no legal right to attend, you knew he was in trouble. The arguments continued and as the clock approached 4.45 Mr Justice Floyd said that he would make his judgement the following morning.

Wednesday morning arrived and as the clock began its approach to 10.00 a.m. the nerves of Liverpool supporters worldwide were already shattered. People were ringing in sick, phones were being smuggled into meetings, senior school children were missing classes, all because they wanted to know if their beloved club was going to be saved. 10.05 arrived and it appeared that the usually time conscious Mr Justice Floyd had not yet arrived but had set a message via the court clerks that no tweets or messages were to reach the outside until after the verdict had been given.

This sent panic through the veins of supporters who saw it as an indication that something was wrong. Proceedings though quickly got underway when Mr Justice Floyd arrived but the silence was awful, no emails, no tweets, no texts, no emails and no updates from the reporters at the court.

Then 45 minutes later came the news that we had all been waiting for, RBS had won their case which meant the sale could continue. I know I looked upwards and said thanks to Shanks. Knowing that Tom Hicks could appeal put a bit of a downer on it until the words that meant three years of hell were over "I will not grant Mr Hicks leave to appeal. By now the tears had begun to fall and with massive relief coming over me, I am ashamed to say I opened and drank some champagne at 11.30 this morning. To top it all Mr Justice Floyd then said that Tom Hicks and George Gillett would have to pay the court costs of between £250,000 - £500,000. Revenge as they say is sweet.

Back to reality though, this evening we await the results of a board meeting that has been called at Slaughter & Mays London office to determine if NESV are now our owners or whether the board feels that they should look at another offer from Mr Lim who feels he was badly treated during the first bidding process. I have though been assured that the bid from NESV will stand. The paperwork is all in signed and in place. It just needs the reconstituted board to vote again and Tom Hicks and George Gillett will become history. Liverpool Football Club will soon rise again and become the club it once was.