Not if the interest payments are simply replaced by dividends. The takeover is clearly financially driven, the new owners are not going to simply write off the debts and effectively "gift" Liverpool £300m in the manner of an Abramovich or Mansour.



They will want, or more correctly need, to make a return on that investment. They will do that either through a steady dividend stream (and in the long term dividends cost more than debt) or, more likely, they'll keep the money in the club for a couple of years, try to steady the ship and then put Liverpool back up for sale in order to make a capital gain.



The deal is good financially for Liverpool as it writes off H&G's stakes, but Its not a free lunch.

At the end of the day who knows what they will do your just guessing.

Bank of Scotland ready to pull the plug as early as next week and put the holding company into administration according to the BBC today.

Its the 15th and that date has been set for yonks.



And if it gets to that stage H&G still lose out and a 9 point deduction will be worth it if the case in the High Court doesn't go the right way.

Nobody knows precisely what they will do, but the need for them to make a return on their investment is a financial imperative. They have no choice. They do not have the resources to do otherwise.

Run the club right and they will.

I never saw the Terry tackle so that rules me out of commenting on that one.



He is a hard player, the point of such tackling is to take the ball cleanly, and as per sliding tackle tradition, the crunch effect will see the opposite man hit the deck. If you've ever tried one or been tackled by one, that's what happens. If it's a great tackle, the man gets taken out of the game for a second or two and the ball has been played in a way as to exploit the space that's resulted from it (this is the bit that NDJ fails to do).



As long as the man goes down as a result of a fair challenge, that's football. I do believe it is supposed to be a man's game is it not, or do you really want to see the 'Wendyball' that many on this board refer to it as?



The City witch hunt is not just aimed at De Jong. The press are constantly looking for tales of club disharmony, putting the knife in on a daily basis, fishing for quotes from discarded players and even bloody medical backroom staff. Every last argument (the kind of which probably goes on every day at most clubs) makes the back pages and is shown as another glorious example of how 'mercenary' the players are and how we are lacking in team spirit; a team full of individuals, blah-blah.



The only time we did not make the headlines was in the couple of days after an eleven man solid work ethic saw us gain three points against Chelsea. Quite simply, some of them were gutted because it destroyed their myth about our players not caring about anything bar their wage packet. Delightfully for them though, Carlos Tevez had a minor disagreement with the manager the week after so they could recommence the battle, and despite being in second, the club is in crisis again.

Bless.





As mentioned it comes with the territory of aiming to be a high profile club. It's hardly a witch hunt.

The PL don't need to give Liverpool a points deduction. The players will take care of that.

Hmm, Ben Afra- De Jong???

Quote Enfield Exile="Enfield Exile"I am sure a post on the Swiss Ramble blog will appear within a week or so (swissramble.blogspot.com/). '" Some cracking reads on there. Hadn't come across it before.

Quote Enfield Exile="Enfield Exile"I am sure a post on the Swiss Ramble blog will appear within a week or so (swissramble.blogspot.com/). '" Some cracking reads on there. Hadn't come across it before.

I think the response of the press to De Jong is probably more down to the World Cup than the fact that he plays for City. It was inevitable that the press would be waiting for any future transgressions. It does seem to me though that for every criticism by a journalist at least one ex player has come out in his defense so I do not think that the coverage has been too unbalanced.



I suppose its inevitable that City will get stick. I think the worst period was on the sunday/monday of the second week of the season when it seemed like the press as a whole had collectively decided to round on the club. Its not unusual for City to get bad press coverage in the sunday/monday papers, but usually its after we've played! My personal favourite that weekend was Michael Calvin's article in the Mirror "Why Football needs Man City's Muppet Show to Fail", a great example of well balanced journalism. But its a huge improvement on the previous affectionate but patronising attitude to the club.

Evening standard has a cracking article on Man utd's financial problems at the moment, Well researched and Utd fans will be spittin feathers.

Not necessarily. We make, or made, quite a lot of money as a club, whilst our wage bill was the 5th/6th largest in the league, it might even be the 7th now, but we were one of the more profitable clubs due to our high'ish revenues, yet moderately high wage bill. I doubt we'll make anywhere near as much due to the early KO in the CL last year, and the lack of qualification for the CL this year. We have a huge shirt sponsorship at the moment with Standard, whilst the potential to sell naming rights to any potential stadium will be huge. The potential to make profit at our club is huge, with a new stadium bringing in higher crowds and sponsorship deals, we could be right up there with United and Arsenal if we're ran the right way. We have a world class academy (admittedly, it hasn't bore much fruit over recent years, but Benitez left it in fantastic shape), we have an absolutely huge fan base that stretches to all corners of the globe, with the potential for that to grow still to be fully tapped into, whilst we still have some semi-decent players at the club, although the current coach is completely incapable of managing the current crop of players, there are still plenty of dire players that shouldn't be here.

I hope this rumour isn't true.

i wouldnt see a problem if either man utd or liverpool took a bit of a financial tumble and struggle for a few years as both have the structure to make a comeback once theyve steadied the ship.self reliance is better then this sugar daddy business thats taken over for the past 5 or 6 years.its a pity footy will never have a salary cap to make sugar daddies less influential

If anyone needs cheering up, spend 6 minutes on YouTube watching that hilarious 'Dear Mr Hicks' video. Cringeworthy beyond description. Not sure what it's supposed to achieve but maybe Liverpool's QC can find a way to shoehorn it into his submissions next week.

I quite like it, and its targetted at the right bloke. Gilette seems to be in the shadows for me

I watched it last week



I was embarrassed for them. Great way to spend 6 minutes.

Someone took a photo of a keyboard in United's Accounts Dept www.truemancunian.co.uk/iou.jpg [size=85Not really...it was created by a City fan from the Bluemoon Forum[/size

Someone took a photo of a keyboard in United's Accounts Dept www.truemancunian.co.uk/iou.jpg [size=85Not really...it was created by a City fan from the Bluemoon Forum[/size

Mate, the fact that your wage bill isn’t as high as ours, United’s and Chelsea’s, is reflected in the group of players you have. Liverpool will need a fair few new players, and within a year or two will have to look at replacing your key player and talisman – Gerrard. I would think your wage bill will increase sharply. YOu will also have to pay that bit more as you cannot offer CL and clubs will want to get every last penny from you if they think you have money burning a hole in your pocket - just like they did with City and Chelsea.



As for global fanbase, each year you fail to qualify for CL, and struggle in the league, those fans will move on to support someone else.



As for your shirt sponsorship, I know it’s a big deal. I don’t know, but is it linked to appearing in the CL or success in the league and cup competitions?



A new stadium will be very expensive - £300m - £400m? Where will the new owner get the money from to buy a new stadium? Or is it likely that this will involve the owner taking out a loan?



Before the new stadium is up and running, you could find that City and Spurs are stronger and more experienced at fighting it out at the top end of the table., and will have stronger squads than they currently have.



Luckily, the FFPR have been written by your club, along with United, Real, Barca and the likes, so you could have a pile of debt after finishing the stadium but still be able to compete in the CL, but a team with no debt may not be able to take part. The rules are so corrupt, that they don’t allow a clubs accounts to show that a transfer fee was paid outright. Instead it has to be amortised over the length of the contract even if the fee has been paid in full. You would think a self-interested party/parties with huge debts had written these rules, wouldn’t you?



Rant over re the FFPR. Hopefully, you will replace United in the top 4.







LGJM, I am not going to talk to you about this. You’re a n0b, and I don’t want to even discuss the weather with you.

You're a hypocritical ****.



When Chelsea were winning the league you were full of it about how Citeh's mid-table finish with a handful of home-grown players was more valid than a title win that had been bought with unearned money.



You made plenty of moronic comments about how West Ham were a bigger club and how poorly behaved our players were.



And now Citeh have a rich backer, other club's supporters attack you in the manner you attacked Chelsea and you can't stop crying about it. You'd think that someone who wrote as much 5hit as you did about Chelsea would recognise exactly how other clubs view Citeh, but clearly you're too dumb to remember your own views from 4 years back.

Tomorrow morning at the High Court,

10:30am

RBS v Hicks

That on SKY HD?