Liverpool can see hope in post-Hicks baseball tale

Liverpool football supporters hoping to be rid of owner Tom Hicks can take heart from a success story going on in US Major League Baseball by a team Hicks once owned that rallied after bankruptcy.

The Texas Rangers are set to face the reigning World Series champion New York Yankees in the best-of-seven American League championship series starting on Saturday, after the first play-off series triumph since the club’s 1961 debut.

In September, the Rangers sealed their first play-off berth since 1999 and on Tuesday they ousted Tampa Bay to advance for the first time.

Barely two months after escaping bankruptcy, the club Hicks bought for 250 million dollars in 1998 from a group that included soon-to-become US President George W. Bush is now four victories shy of reaching its first World Series.

Hicks and partner George Gillett are fighting the sale of Liverpool to the owners of the Boston Red Sox, claiming the price tag is too low despite angry protests from Liverpool fans desperate for them to leave the club.

Hicks, who last year was identified by Forbes magazine as being worth more than one billion dollars, saw the Rangers enter bankruptcy in May and escape in August after being sold for 591 million dollars to a group led by former Rangers star pitcher Nolan Ryan.

The team’s lenders, owed more than 500 million dollars, objected to the original purchase offer, saying it was too low and forcing the Ryan group to boost their eventual price tag for the Rangers by 80 million dollars.

Hicks has been drawing an annual salary of 183,504 dollars from the baseball club, according to information released by the Rangers.

In the Liverpool case, it is Hicks and Gillett who want to hold out for a better offer for the club than the 476 million dollars made by the Red Sox group, even as executives worry for the club’s fate if about 450 million dollars in debts to banks are not settled by Friday.

Should the 18-time English champions be put into financial administration, they could be penalised nine points by the Premier League and face the prospect of relegation, having made their worst start to a season since 1953.