Is there really hope on the horizon for Liverpool?

At last, light appears at the end of the Liverpool tunnel. Royal Bank of Scotland will back a six-month refinancing package in the summer but only to push ahead the sale of the club. Yet another investment bank — Barclays Capital — has been appointed to look for buyers. Reports said that it is impressed by, among other things, progress on the construction of a fine new stadium. Really? I think I might buy a lottery ticket next week in the hope of impressing Barclays with my vast wealth.

There is no stadium in Stanley Park. Anyone who attended the match against Benfica on Thursday knows that there is not even a single red brick on the site. There is planning permission tucked away in the Anfield vaults; that’s all.


So whatever Barclays’ prospective buyers agree to pay — and the weekend talk suddenly restored Liverpool’s worth to the £500 million that the more determined of the Dubai bidders deemed slightly excessive in early 2007 — will have to be topped up with £300 million for a home grand enough to allow the club to compete more fairly with their London and Manchester rivals.

Only if the Dubai lot, headed by Sheikh Mohammed, come back on the scene is there likely to be much cause for rejoicing. Liverpool will never be fit for the Champions League again until that stadium is rising in the park and the scale of finance the project requires would appear to rule out inhabitants of the real world, or Merseyside equivalents of the Red Knights (they could be dubbed Crimson Counts).

There is, however, an interesting coincidence here. Amanda Staveley, the City high-flier who was said to have received a £20 million fee for arranging Barclays’ bailout by the Abu Dhabi royal family last year, had earlier helped the Dubai bidders for Liverpool and was also involved in the Abu Dhabi takeover of Manchester City. So, if I were a Liverpool fan, I’d be feeling cautiously optimistic.

If, on the other hand, my name were Hicks or Gillett, I’d be marvelling at how the system had come to my rescue. What possesses banks to get so heavily involved in football when there is serious and much bigger business out there? I suppose executives find it glamorous and publicity-generating. If only they were using their own money — rather than your savings and mine.

Things were so simple in the days before David Moores came to the conclusion that big-time football had outgrown his fortune and sold out. No wonder Uefa realised, however belatedly, that something had to be done about the pressures on ownership.

Still at Anfield, though, you can experience unforgettable nights, such as Thursday. It was like a rebirth: ethereal. So dazzling that you floated out and peered through a gap in the fence round the adjacent building-site — just in case the new stadium had suddenly materialised.

Source

timesonlie.co.uk