Two of the key figures in the company that now owns Liverpool, John W Henry and Tom Werner of NESV, will meet with Roy Hodgson today, Monday, to start planning for the future and reassure him that he will be given some time to turn around a poor start to the season that got worse with yesterday’s 2-0 defeat to Everton in the Merseyside derby.
As Werner, chairman of the Boston Red Sox, made clear on Radio 5 Live yesterday: “He needs to be given time. We have a lot of confidence in Roy. Obviously, no-one can be pleased about the start of the season but the club ought to gel and we have a lot of confidence in him, and had a nice chat with him yesterday and look forward to talking to him today.”
A transcript of the interview is below.
Though there is already dissatisfaction with Hodgson among a growing number of fans – not helped by his assertion that yesterday’s display was Liverpool’s best of the season – it seems NESV are committed for now.
Werner and Henry will also begin to meet fans’ groups today to establish contact between the ownership team and the supporters, although there will be no firm promises of a fan-owned chunk of the club at this stage.
In terms of investment, Werner has said he won’t be afraid to write cheques for the future, citing the $100m investment in fee and wages at the Red Sox in 2006 in pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka alone.
And Werner insisted that that NESV will “increase the payroll” at Liverpool, saying: “We certainly realize that there is in some ways a very strong correlation between success in the Premier League and wages.”
He may well have read this Wall Street Journal piece (citing sportingintelligence’s Global Sports Salaries research that explores the relationship in major sports around the world between money and success, also mentioned here).
Certainly Werner seems to realize that winning costs money, and that success tends to be self-perpetuating at the highest levels in English and European football. But it’s also known that NESV have been attracted to Liverpool now specifically because of Uefa’s incoming Financial Fair Play rules, which will almost certainly help perpetuate the advantage of the biggest clubs, like Liverpool, while preventing overspending as part of the rules that govern the game.
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