By Andy Heaton and Jim Boardman

And so, nineteen years after buying the club, five years after Istanbul, three years after selling the club and two years after speaking out to defend his close friend, David Moores last night, finally, spoke out about the state that the once great Liverpool Football Club now finds itself in.

Kind of.

In an open letter to The Times, the first thing that multi-millionaire former majority shareholder, Chairman and Life President David Moores makes clear is that he isn’t apologising, nor has he ever felt the need to, instead pleading a defence of what can only be described as ignorance and stupidity, stating that he, just like the fans, just like Steve Morgan and just like all the other minor shareholders had all been hoodwinked by Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

He, just like the rest of us, was a victim of the American regime, but unlike the rest of us who could no more influence the direction that the club took in 2007 than we could take a seat on the team bus on the way to the match, had the power and more importantly, the responsibility to make the right call or wrong call back in February 2007, and he got it wrong

Badly wrong.

The self pitying tone continues throughout the best part of another three thousand words, blaming everyone from Rothschilds, to DIC, to Samir Al Ansari and even Roman Abramovic, before finally reaching out with an admission that fans had been demanding from him for two years and then signing off with an appeal to those he allowed in to destroy the club to leave:

“I hugely regret selling the club to George Gillett and Tom Hicks. I believe that, at best, they have bitten off much more than they can chew. Giving them that benefit of the doubt – that they started off with grand ideals that they were never realistically going to achieve – I call upon them now to stand back, accept their limitations as joint owners of Liverpool Football Club, acknowledge their role in the club‘s current demise, and stand aside, with dignity, to allow someone else to take up the challenge. Don’t punish the club’s supporters any more – God knows they’ve taken enough. Take an offer, be realistic over the price, make it possible. Let the club go. It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to concede for the greater good.” [Read more →]

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Liverpool fans have enough problems trying to decipher the truth from the never-ending speculation and off-the-record whispering that fills the back pages on a regular basis. Hints are made, but those doing the hinting haven’t the courage to put their names to their suggestions about their enemies. Or perhaps in some cases their contracts prevent them from just coming out with it.

That’s why it’s always good to see some actual quotes. Obviously it doesn’t mean the speaker is being honest but at least we know what the speaker really said.

Except, it seems, when it’s the BBC reporting the quotes. Only they can say why they missed out a vital couple of answers from their exclusive interview with Steven Gerrard, on duty with England but finding himself being asked about his Liverpool future. [Read more →]

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You’ll have to be quick, but for a chance to win a trip to this summer’s World Cup Finals tournament all you need to do is wave to your webcam for a few seconds.

Sony Ericsson have launched the “South African Wave” and if it replaces the distracting “Mexican Wave” we see at far too many international games these days then I for one am all for it. They hope to create “the longest online stadium wave on record”.

In Sony Ericsson’s own words: “The South African Wave, which will run until the end of the World Cup on the 11th July, asks football fans to submit their own recreation of the wave that became famous at the Mexico World Cup in 1986. All fans need to do is head to www.sonyericsson.com/wave, upload their video or film it there and then via webcam, submit and share it for the chance to win tickets to the FIFA World Cup Finals this summer.”

The site also has a leaderboard; at the time of writing England were in front with Spain in fourth place,

Sounds like a bit of a laugh, if nothing else, and the bonus is there’s a chance you could go and see Jamie Carragher, Fernando Torres or Javier Mascherano fighting for their countries instead of us in South Africa.

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Former Liverpool striker Besian Idrizaj has died of in his sleep at just 22 years of age.

Reports from his homeland of Austria suggested he had died of a heart attack, but his current club Swansea City say that the exact cause of his tragic death is yet to be confirmed.

The Swansea City website said: “Swansea City can confirm that the agent of young striker Besian Idrizaj has informed the club that the striker has sadly passed away.

“It is understood that the popular 22-year-old died in his sleep on Friday night while at home with his family in Austria.

“The exact cause of death has not been confirmed and our thoughts are with his family, friends and team-mates at this time.”

The Austrian forward became a Red in 2005 after being signed from LASK Linz, but was unfortunately unable to break into the first team during his three years at the club. After loans at Luton and Crystal Palace he returned to Austria for the remainder of his Liverpool contract on loan to Wacker Innsbruck.

It was whilst he was playing for Wacker in February 2008 that he collapsed on the field during a game, with fears that his career may have been over at twenty because of what was feared to be a heart condition.

However he recovered and was ultimately given the all-clear by doctors who said his collapse was the result of a virus. He was signed by Swansea City and considered the problems were now all in the past.

Speaking to the South Wales Evening Post shortly after his move to the Swans, Besian explained what he had been told about his collapse: “It was just a virus. It infected me badly and because of this I collapsed. I had the best doctors looking after me and I had all the tests, every one that you can have. There was nothing wrong with my heart.”

He also looked back on his time as a Red: “I really enjoyed myself there. I loved every second, but maybe I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have done. When you’re young you don’t really think about how big the club is. You never go home and think ‘I’m playing for a great team’.

He went on: “I had some really good chances to play in the first team at Liverpool and it was my fault I didn’t. I made mistakes but I don’t really want to speak about them. Swansea is my challenge now, but it would have been a dream to play in that team.

“Steven Gerrard is one of the top five players in the world, while I also looked up to people like Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia, you can always learn from these great players.”

And what most Liverpool fans will remember him for best of all was a pre-season friendly appearance against Wrexham: “In my last year I scored a hat-trick in a friendly, but then I realised I wasn’t going to play.”

He was clearly grateful to Swansea, and very much full of hope as he embarked on that next step in his career with Swansea at the start of the 2009-10 season: “When I didn’t have a club I was going to the gym every day and playing football with my friends as much as I could. I played five-a-side and sometimes tournaments at the weekend. Now I have this chance at Swansea and I am desperate to show everyone what I can do.”

Besian also said, very poignantly: “There have been ups and downs in my career but there are always going to be knocks in your life. When they come you always have to stand up again.”

Signed at the start of the season, Besian would go on to play four times four games for Swansea, including one League Cup appearance, as the Swans narrowly missed out on a play-off spot.

Swansea said they were waiting for more details from Austria before commenting further.

Liverpool said: “Everyone at Liverpool Football Club would like to pass on their condolences to Besian’s family and friends at this very sad time.”

Those thoughts are of course shared by Anfield Road, and we’re sure by all Liverpool supporters.

Rest in Peace. You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Tags: News by Jim Boardman
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It’s depressing enough being a Liverpool fan just by looking at the league table or that big taxi-meter style counter totting up the ridiculous daily interest payments the club has to make. Then you find yourself trying to reason with people who have far more interest in seeing the manager replaced than finding ways of making the owners sell up more quickly. People who are so set on seeing that manager gone that they just won’t stop for a few minutes and consider that maybe, just maybe, it’s not all as simple as blaming one person for all the ills this club has to endure.

Then you realise that many of those people you’ve been trying to reason with haven’t got the courage to step away from the little group they’re in and actually think about things all by themselves, to make their own minds up, to question the joint opinion of their little group on all things LFC and to maybe even risk finding themselves drummed out of that little group. So, briefly, you wonder why you even bothered trying; they’ll not change their minds until one of their leaders or advisers tells them to.

That’s when you realise that you’re not talking to them, not really. They won’t change their minds in a hurry, but a lot of people listen in without getting involved. And they are the people you’re talking to really, people who will listen to all that is said and make their own minds up. People who don’t just follow their leader. People with the sense to see that people at the club are using fans for their own ends. [Read more →]

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25 years ago today, Saturday May 11th 1985, 56 people died in a fire at a football match in Bradford.

On what started as a day of celebration for newly-promoted Bradford City, joy turned to tragedy as the main stand caught fire at Valley Parade.

In memory of the victims, and to their families and the survivors, we understand your pain and you are in our thoughts and prayers.

You’ll Never Walk Alone. [Read more →]

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A depressing season for Liverpool comes to an end this afternoon with a game at relegated Hull that seems like a case of going through the motions. But it’s more than that for at least one of Liverpool’s squad. 16-year-old academy player Jack Robinson is on the bench and would become the club’s youngest-ever first team player if the manager brought him on.

Will it be Rafa’s last game in charge? Despite the speculation it seems unlikely, but it really is difficult to work out what happens next for a club that is falling apart from above, and too hard to tell which of the squad – or those out through injury or otherwise – will be a part of the club’s plans for next season.

Yossi Benayoun is believed to have played his last game for the club, but if the chairman is to be believed Fernando Torres hasn’t.

But can we believe the chairman? That is the sort of question all Liverpool fans must strive to find an answer to, because the truth has been a stranger to the Anfield boardroom for far too long.

Good luck to Jack.

Liverpool: Reina, Mascherano, Kyrgiakos, Carragher, Agger, Lucas, Gerrard, Aquilani, Babel, El Zhar, Kuyt
Subs: Cavalieri, Ngog, Degen, Skrtel, Ayala, Robinson, Pacheco

Tags: News by Jim Boardman
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By Andy Heaton and Jim Boardman.

Fears amongst Liverpool supporters that the appointment of Martin Broughton was little more than a ploy to buy more time from the banks certainly won’t be eased following Sunday Times revelations that the latest loan extension from RBS was for a full 12 months.

New chairman Broughton was ostensibly brought in to facilitate the swift sale of the club, a sale in his words that should be completed in “a matter of months”. If fans believed him (and a few did for a short time, until reality slapped them in the face again) there’d have been something to finally celebrate in a season no Liverpool fan has enjoyed. But the likelihood of that happening at Torres speed looked extremely slim following a report in the Wall Street Journal claiming Tom Hicks still expected the club to sell for up to £800m. That was before the Reds’ accounts were sneaked out last week showing overall debt of a staggering £473m and dashing supporters’ hopes of an end to this torture yet further.

To now find that the bank gave the owners at least 12 months to find a buyer who was willing to not only pay that outrageous asking price but to deal with that frightening debt leaves fans with heads in hands convinced there is no end to this nightmare. Have the owners persuaded the bank to stay off their backs long enough to see if the world markets recover? [Read more →]

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EXCLUSIVE

By David Bick, Chairman, Square1 Consulting

Once again, the accounts for the main operating company of Liverpool FC, namely Kop Football (Holdings) Limited, do not make attractive reading.

The net loss of £53m is up on the loss of £42m for 2008 and the bulk of this is accounted for by interest charges of £40m (actually £43m when capitalised interest is taken into account – which doesn’t get shown on the profit and loss account). Over two years, the company has racked up losses of £95m of which interest charges make up a whopping £76m. These substantial losses seem at odds with a recent statement by the club that profitability had been improved since 2007. The interest charges are a combination of those paid to RBS and those due to Kop Football (Cayman) Limited, a company controlled by George Gillett and Tom Hicks.

There is a negative net worth on the balance sheet of £128m, a further decline from a minus £75m in the previous year.

Net borrowings have climbed substantially and stood at £351m, up 17% on the previous year. Included in these outstanding debts is £144m owed to Kop Football (Cayman) Limited and this figure has climbed £86m in one year alone, although no explanation is given as to why.

The borrowing agreement with RBS was only renewed for 6 months last July through to 24 January this year and then, again for reasons not explained, for less than 6 weeks to 3 March. It is also not explained how and to when the borrowing facility has been extended since that date.

The auditors again write a going concern paragraph and make clear that the business is dependent on short term bank facility extensions.

If the interest charges are at similar levels for the year which will end this 31 July, and estimated operating profit turns out to be as has been reported, further losses are going to be difficult to avoid.

Within the stated income, it is not clarified how much was contributed from the participation in the European Champions League, which is income that will clearly be missing next season.

All in all, these numbers – and the auditor’s observations – speak for themselves.

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Photo from fOTOGLIF

The meeting between Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez, new chairman Martin Broughton and managing director Christian Purslow that took place earlier today was described as “constructive” and the first of what is intended to be a “series” of meetings.

A Liverpool statement said: “We are pleased that the first of what is intended to be a series of meetings took place today between the chairman, managing director and the manager.”

“The meeting was constructive.

“The chairman shared his views about plans for the future of the club. There was an exchange of views on issues of concern to both the board and the manager which were either addressed or to be picked up in forthcoming meetings.”

It remains to be seen what the true outcome of the meeting was and whether Rafa Benitez got the assurances he sought, namely that he be able to re-invest any money from sales this summer into new purchases. Chances are that only one of the trio will be forced to answer questions on the meeting at a press conference, and that will be at Rafa’s regular pre-match meeting with the media later in the week.

And it hardly sounds like the trio were about to head off for a few celebratory points afterwards.

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