Tom Hicks has hit out at the former Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez as he defended himself and his fellow former co-owner, George Gillett, against claims they did not provide the necessary financial support to the Spaniard during his Anfield tenure.
"We spent £300m on players, £150m net – I think it's the second or third highest in the English Premier League," he said. "You never read about that in the media. I read a very interesting article in which Alex Ferguson [the Manchester United manager] said: 'Rafa had more money to spend than the rest of us, he just bought bad players.'
"Rafa lost the club. We didn't finish at the top – that's not the fault of the owners, we spent good money. Rafa has to take accountability for his own results. When we finished second the year before, people weren't nearly as angry. Liverpool fans are just unbelievably strong supporters and they want to win. I'm not a novice, I've been in sport for almost 15 years. Whether it's hockey or baseball in the US or soccer fans in Liverpool, people want to win."
The club's chairman, Martin Broughton, and creditors Royal Bank of Scotland, also came under attack from Hicks, as he claimed in an interview with Sky Sports News that they had breached his trust.
"This has been an organized conspiracy over many months," he said. "[Independent chairman] Martin Broughton wanted a good PR event in his life and be seen as the guy that got rid of those Americans – and he sold to another group of Americans.
"I can't go into the details but I can confirm the funds were available to pay off Royal Bank of Scotland entirely but between Royal Bank of Scotland, the chairman and the employees that conspired against us, they would not let us. They were people I thought were our friends, people I thought were loyal, and I was wrong."
Hicks said he had identified a buyer he felt would be better to take Liverpool forward, but claimed his attempts to broker a deal had been undermined by people inside the club. "My family members and I have been working very hard to solve the issue," he added. "We know there are better owners out there for the Liverpool Football Club than the Boston Red Sox group.
"We knew who they were. We were just frustrated that every time we had conversations with them we had people in our own organization who somehow had those things not work out. They conspired against us."
He added: "The process was continually frustrated by chatter about financial distress coming out of RBS. The interested buyers that we knew would be the right type of buyers for the club – look what's happened to Manchester City now with their new ownership – that's the kind of buyer we were trying to find for Liverpool and those people were scared off by the distress chatter and the organized internet terrorism campaign that was directed against people involved.
"I just want the truth to come out in the courts. Our desire was to get Liverpool into the hands of an owner who would be able to build a stadium and make Liverpool the top club in the world they deserve to be."
The 64-year-old Texan admitted that the debt he and Gillett had saddled on the club was "a little too much", but he hit out at RBS for attempting to drive through a sale too quickly.
Hicks said: "Liverpool is a very healthy performing club which covers its interest fine. It has a little bit too much debt, no question. But we were going to fix that and we were frustrated by others."
He conceded that his struggle to communicate with the fans since he took over in March 2007 had conspired to the bitterness surrounding his departure. "I accept that fact that something went wrong in my ability to communicate with the fans and I'm saddened by it," he said.
"I wish more people had the accurate information. It [the debt] has been a millstone because of the fans' reaction to it. There's been so many inaccurate numbers about what our interest bill is – we've had plenty of operating income to cover our interest payments with a lot of room to spare.
"We've invested. George and I put in $270m into the club. We've spent nearly $300m gross on players. About $150m net on players and you never hear that in the media. That disappears in all the noise and anger."
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