The Liverpool Echo has today finally got some answers out of the Texan joint-owner of Liverpool, Tom Hicks. A teaser has appeared on the Echo website, with a promise of more to be revealed later in the printed edition. Hicks admits lining up Jurgen Klinsmann, and there’s an admission that DIC were indeed approached about buying a share of the club.
We’ll try and keep you up-to-date with this later in the afternoon, but in the meantime keep an eye on the Echo website for more.
The story, by die-hard Liverpool supporter Tony Barrett is headlined: “Tom Hicks exclusive: We lined up Jurgen Klinsmann.”
However Hicks tries to claim that Rafa wasn’t about to be sacked, and that they’d only spoken to Klinsmann as “an insurance policy”. He says that an exit from the Champions League would have been their excuse to sack Rafa, regardless of league performances. In an explanation worse than a Gerard Houllier grass-eating celebration excuse, he also says it was purely down to speculation that Rafa was being lined up by Real Madrid!
At this stage, without the full quotes and full context it’s best not to comment in too much depth, but the fact they now admit they were lining up a failed international manager with no club experience tells us pretty much all we need to know. These baseball and ice hockey fans should not be running the most successfull football club in English history.
Hicks said: “We attempted to negotiate an option, as an insurance policy, to have him become manager if Rafa left for Real Madrid or other clubs that were rumoured in the UK press. Or in case our communication spiralled out of control for some reason.”
The Echo also says that “a deal was almost agreed for Dubai International Capital to buy a minority share in the club in the autumn, only for talks to collapse over the valuation of the club.”
It also says Hicks is still hoping to have the refinance deal in place by the end of this week.