Court battle over Liverpool as new offer comes in

The legal battle over the ownership of Liverpool got under way Tuesday as the saga took a new twist with an increased offer for the Premier League club from a Singaporean billionaire.

In the High Court in London, Liverpool’s current American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett were accused of trying to “frustrate” the club’s sale to the owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team.

Shortly after the hearing began, Singapore tycoon Peter Lim confirmed he had made a rival bid of 360 million pounds (574 million dollars) to help Liverpool “regain its position at the pinnacle of English and European football, where it truly belongs”.

The package is 20 percent higher than the proposal of 300 million pounds made by Red Sox owners New England Sports Ventures (NESV) which was accepted by the club’s management last week.

However, it appears that Lim’s bid does not offer any more money to Hicks and Gillett.

Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton’s decision to sell to NESV is now being contested by Hicks and Gillett, whose three-year reign at the club has been widely unpopular with supporters and has coincided with a lack of success on the pitch.

Broughton claims that when the owners decided to sell the club in April, major creditor Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) requested undertakings that only he, as independent chairman, could make changes to the club’s board.

Hicks has denied that any such undertakings took place and that therefore Broughton’s actions in forcing through the sale to NESV were illegal and invalid.

In the opening exchanges at the High Court, Richard Snowden, a lawyer representing RBS, accused Hicks and Gillett of trying to change the running of the club to block the sale to NESV.

He said this was in order “to frustrate the sale necessary to repay the bank 200 million pounds by this Friday”, the deadline for the repayment of the loan that the Americans took out to buy the club in 2007.

The lawyer said the American owners now admitted “a calculated breach of contract” by trying to change the constitution of the companies and the boards involved with the bank’s consent.

Hicks and Gillett stand to lose 144 million pounds between them if the 300-million-pound sale to NESV goes through.

Lim’s offer values the club at 320 million pounds and he has pledged a further 40 million pounds to buy new players.

“I respect and admire Liverpool Football Club, which is steeped in tradition and history,” said Lim, 57, a self-made fishmonger’s son whose fortune is estimated by US business magazine Forbes at 1.6 billion dollars.

“I am committed to rebuilding the club so that it can soon regain its position at the pinnacle of English and European football, where it truly belongs. This is why I have stepped forward with this offer,” he added in a statement.

The new offer is in cash and will remove the entire acquisition debt of 200 million pounds taken on by the existing owners.

Lim said: “My offer provides a firm financial platform from which the club can rebuild. Given the manner in which the sale process has been handled, I feel Martin and the Board owe it to me, to the club and to the supporters to consider my offer.”

As the boardroom battle has reached a peak, Liverpool have made their worst start to a season for nearly 50 years.

The team, managed by Roy Hodgson and starring Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, are languishing in the Premier League relegation zone and have been eliminated from the League Cup.