The burning question on the lips of every Liverpool FC supporter regarding new ownership today is ‘Who?’ But just as importantly, arguably more so today, is the answer to the conundrum: ‘How?’
Because just how Liverpool Football Club goes about the business of finding a new owner in the coming days, weeks and months is a complex, yet utterly vital question.
Inevitably, the process itself is the key precursor to just who might eventually be chosen and anointed as successors to Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
If Hicks and Gillett have been a monumental mistake - and for the entire PR gloss of the past 24 hours try finding a true Liverpool supporter who feels otherwise - it is a mistake that can never, ever begin to be repeated.
So Liverpool Football Club and those in a position to influence its fortunes just have to find the right answer to both questions - or the Reds’ future will simply be too bleak to contemplate.
For a football club famed for its harmony down the decades - yet one driven by factionalism and in-fighting among its changing component parts in the last few years - how Liverpool select the right suitor now is the critical issue.
Last year the first sign of a break in the dysfunctional ownership and management deadlock which has shackled and strangled Anfield, emerged.
As Rick Parry and Rafa Benitez parted company after several seasons of un-Anfield like attrition, with Parry resigning; and as Hicks and Gillett’s relationship deteriorated past the point of breakdown, in came a new man at the top.
Appointed as Managing Director, he was the man charged with plotting the great escape for the club he had supported since boyhood.
For the past eight or nine months he has been working not just to help oversee the day to day running of Anfield affairs, but lining up potential new investors to break the deadlock and change the dynamic.
Many fans will wonder now just what his role is given the appointment of British Airways Chief Martin Broughton as Liverpool’s chairman, a man charged with selling the club in just the same way as many perceived Purslow has been trying to do.
More cynical fans may see yesterday’s appointment as bad news for Purslow. More optimistic, maybe even more shrewd analysts will see it as good news. There is now one more British businessman and football fanatic on Liverpool FC’s board to help understand and shape its future.
Broughton was yesterday very quick to point out his admiration for the expertise of the management team at Anfield - Purslow, Commercial Director Ian Ayre and Financial Director Philip Nash. All of them remember, appointments signed off by Hicks and Gillett and the men responsible for those commercial figures which the Americans can actually signpost as vastly improved during their controversial tenure.
Broughton quickly insisted the day to day running of operations at Liverpool remains in their hands, and that his remit is to get this sale deal done - done right and done quickly.
Of course the right bit matters more than the quick bit, whatever the desperate thirst for change on the Kop and the appetite for a formal ending of the Hicks and Gillett era.
And getting it right will only be achieved if Broughton and Purslow work together with others to ensure this new sale process is conducted flawlessly and well.
For the sake of one of the world’s greatest football clubs - one still with so much untapped potential, for all its wounds and troubles and battered reputation - it has to happen that way.
If there is one thing Liverpool fans can applaud today, then it is the business expertise and the football fanaticism that both men bring to the table.
Broughton has a hugely significant reputation, not least on the diplomatic and problem solving front. And while his love of all things Stamford Bridge will not naturally endear him to Kopites, which may yet turn out to be of no real consequence.
Purslow, a Harvard and Cambridge modern languages graduate with a huge pedigree in the world of banking and business is hardly a slouch in these areas either.
For all their qualifications and their impressive career portfolios, what matters most now is that they - and those executives around them - can work together as a genuine team on behalf of Liverpool to begin to get it back on track.
It’s no flat track.
The road ahead for the Reds remains paved with high hurdles and bear-traps. The journey towards a place of relative safety is uncertain and long.
In short, for all the danger signs ahead, if they actually care about Liverpool Football Club, its traditions and values then there is reason to hope and believe they will get this monumentally important process right.
If they understand how they can both go down in history as the key men who saved the Reds from a footballing storm of biblical proportions, they can yet pull it off.
But it won’t be easy.
Martin Broughton will be present at Anfield on Monday night and will no doubt learn a lot from his first visit as Chairman.
Had he been present 48 hours ago - as Purslow was - at the 21st memorial service to the victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, he would no doubt have learned even more.
He’d have learned that Liverpool Football club really is an impressive family - a family still united and one that holds an incredibly special place in the hearts and minds of its supporters.
When you see Margaret Aspinall telling those present that she and they are the eyes, the ears and the voices of the 96 Hillsborough victims, you’d be heartless and stupid and wrong to ever class football these days as merely a business, as so many people do.
As Bill Shankly might no doubt have declared, it isn’t.
It is far more important than that.
And it’s time for everyone who loves Liverpool FC - or who is in a position to map its future - to understand the burden upon them, to put the club first and to get this difficult process right.
There will not be a second chance.
Because just how Liverpool Football Club goes about the business of finding a new owner in the coming days, weeks and months is a complex, yet utterly vital question.
Inevitably, the process itself is the key precursor to just who might eventually be chosen and anointed as successors to Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
If Hicks and Gillett have been a monumental mistake - and for the entire PR gloss of the past 24 hours try finding a true Liverpool supporter who feels otherwise - it is a mistake that can never, ever begin to be repeated.
So Liverpool Football Club and those in a position to influence its fortunes just have to find the right answer to both questions - or the Reds’ future will simply be too bleak to contemplate.
For a football club famed for its harmony down the decades - yet one driven by factionalism and in-fighting among its changing component parts in the last few years - how Liverpool select the right suitor now is the critical issue.
Last year the first sign of a break in the dysfunctional ownership and management deadlock which has shackled and strangled Anfield, emerged.
As Rick Parry and Rafa Benitez parted company after several seasons of un-Anfield like attrition, with Parry resigning; and as Hicks and Gillett’s relationship deteriorated past the point of breakdown, in came a new man at the top.
Appointed as Managing Director, he was the man charged with plotting the great escape for the club he had supported since boyhood.
For the past eight or nine months he has been working not just to help oversee the day to day running of Anfield affairs, but lining up potential new investors to break the deadlock and change the dynamic.
Many fans will wonder now just what his role is given the appointment of British Airways Chief Martin Broughton as Liverpool’s chairman, a man charged with selling the club in just the same way as many perceived Purslow has been trying to do.
More cynical fans may see yesterday’s appointment as bad news for Purslow. More optimistic, maybe even more shrewd analysts will see it as good news. There is now one more British businessman and football fanatic on Liverpool FC’s board to help understand and shape its future.
Broughton was yesterday very quick to point out his admiration for the expertise of the management team at Anfield - Purslow, Commercial Director Ian Ayre and Financial Director Philip Nash. All of them remember, appointments signed off by Hicks and Gillett and the men responsible for those commercial figures which the Americans can actually signpost as vastly improved during their controversial tenure.
Broughton quickly insisted the day to day running of operations at Liverpool remains in their hands, and that his remit is to get this sale deal done - done right and done quickly.
Of course the right bit matters more than the quick bit, whatever the desperate thirst for change on the Kop and the appetite for a formal ending of the Hicks and Gillett era.
And getting it right will only be achieved if Broughton and Purslow work together with others to ensure this new sale process is conducted flawlessly and well.
For the sake of one of the world’s greatest football clubs - one still with so much untapped potential, for all its wounds and troubles and battered reputation - it has to happen that way.
If there is one thing Liverpool fans can applaud today, then it is the business expertise and the football fanaticism that both men bring to the table.
Broughton has a hugely significant reputation, not least on the diplomatic and problem solving front. And while his love of all things Stamford Bridge will not naturally endear him to Kopites, which may yet turn out to be of no real consequence.
Purslow, a Harvard and Cambridge modern languages graduate with a huge pedigree in the world of banking and business is hardly a slouch in these areas either.
For all their qualifications and their impressive career portfolios, what matters most now is that they - and those executives around them - can work together as a genuine team on behalf of Liverpool to begin to get it back on track.
It’s no flat track.
The road ahead for the Reds remains paved with high hurdles and bear-traps. The journey towards a place of relative safety is uncertain and long.
In short, for all the danger signs ahead, if they actually care about Liverpool Football Club, its traditions and values then there is reason to hope and believe they will get this monumentally important process right.
If they understand how they can both go down in history as the key men who saved the Reds from a footballing storm of biblical proportions, they can yet pull it off.
But it won’t be easy.
Martin Broughton will be present at Anfield on Monday night and will no doubt learn a lot from his first visit as Chairman.
Had he been present 48 hours ago - as Purslow was - at the 21st memorial service to the victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, he would no doubt have learned even more.
He’d have learned that Liverpool Football club really is an impressive family - a family still united and one that holds an incredibly special place in the hearts and minds of its supporters.
When you see Margaret Aspinall telling those present that she and they are the eyes, the ears and the voices of the 96 Hillsborough victims, you’d be heartless and stupid and wrong to ever class football these days as merely a business, as so many people do.
As Bill Shankly might no doubt have declared, it isn’t.
It is far more important than that.
And it’s time for everyone who loves Liverpool FC - or who is in a position to map its future - to understand the burden upon them, to put the club first and to get this difficult process right.
There will not be a second chance.
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