Monday, August 23, 2010

Wolves Owner Steve Morgan Tips 'Special Purchaser' To Rebuild Liverpool FC




Steve Morgan believes that Liverpool require a 'special purchaser' to rebuild the club.

Hong Kong-based businessman Kenny Huang officially withdrew his interest in buying Tom Hicks and George Gillett's shares on Friday after growing impatient at the pace at which chairman Martin Broughton and the board were conducting the sale process.

Morgan, a former Anfield shareholder, attempted to buy the club in 2004 before he became owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers and believes that Liverpool require a wealthy investor who is willing to provide funding so that they can once again challenge for major honours.

Redrow magnate Morgan, 57, also hit out at the Americans for acquiring David Moores' majority stakeholding through a leveraged buyout, which has seen Liverpool's debts rise to well over £351million, and claims this is an improper way for any football club to be run.

"I don't think you can buy any football club on leverage. You can't gear up like you can in a manufacturing or a property company. It just doesn't work that way," he said.

"The players and agents' wage demands these days mean that there's very little left over after you've paid for the running of the club.

"There certainly isn't the money there to service hugely leveraged debt - and that's the mistake not only Liverpool have made.

"To take over Liverpool now, you need very deep pockets.

"The amount of people with those deep pockets is limited, and them being prepared to invest in Liverpool, knowing that they have go to build to get it back even remotely in contention again, in addition to the stadium issue, is going to need quite a special purchaser to come in."

Morgan attempted to extend his 5% share in Liverpool six years ago in a bid to trump former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who went on to briefly own Manchester City, and maintains that he would have ensured that the club remained debt-free.

He added: "It's difficult to rewrite history but the circumstances were different.

"The deal that we almost had with David Moores was a combination of paying some money out to buy shares off him, but the bulk of the investment was going into the club.

"At the time, the debt wasn't huge so the investment going into the club would have cleared all the debt off so Liverpool would have been debt-free.

"Had it happened, it would have been a very different history that we'd be looking back on now, but the one thing for sure is that there wouldn't have been any debt."

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