After a spell of statements, interviews and sound-bites in November, all denying the various negative stories related to the club’s owners or their treatment of the club, Liverpool FC chief executive Rick Parry went a little quiet.
One co-owner – George Gillett – disappeared and the other – Tom Hicks – took over the job of spinning the truth, glossing over the facts and in some cases telling what it would be difficult to describe as anything other than lies. When that started to backfire he got a PR company to do his dirty work.
One of the denials issued by Parry related to the relationship between Hicks and Gillett, which had been reported to be far from rosy. The denials went on, although Hicks now admits that they have had disagreements, but rumours persist that Gillett and Hicks are completely at odds with each other. One rumour has Gillett feeling betrayed almost as much as Liverpool fans at how Hicks went back on his promises, but if Gillett is so unhappy then perhaps he ought to own up to that scenario rather than hiding in Colorado, refusing to answer questions on the situation.
Hicks is already taking on more responsibility in the “running”, for want of a better word, of the club, alongside commercial director Ian Ayre. Ayre, Hicks and Hicks’ son Thomas Junior are the three representatives of the club at the next Soccerex event which takes place at Wembley in April. Hicks is interestingly listed as “owner” rather than “co-owner”, but of course it’s easy to read too much into these things. Gillett isn’t listed, nor is his son Foster who was originally intended to be based in England full time.
Whether or not that list of representatives from the club will change by then remains to be seen. Despite DIC’s reported interest in buying out Hicks having gone fairly quiet in terms of press coverage, the interest is believed to be still there and as strong as ever.
Amidst all the off-field turmoil Liverpool have been slipping up on the field. How much of an impact the off-field troubles have had on the on-field situation is impossible to gauge – but to say it’s had no impact would be rather naive. Cue Mr Parry: “It is time to look forward; there can be no question about that. The whole focus for the second half of the season has to be on football and the games we need to win. Everyone must pull together and there has to be a realisation that there is nothing the ownership can contribute to the winning of games.”
Nothing the ownership can contribute? Or nothing the ownership will contribute?
There has just been a transfer window, and in it the club brought one player in and let one player go. LFC actually made a profit in the transfer window, probably for the first time since transfer windows were introduced. After having invested nothing extra in the summer, despite their promises and implied promises, the owners had a chance to contribute. To put more money into the transfer coffers and bring in some new faces who would improve the attacking side of the team.
Being fair to the owners, even though they don’t exactly deserve it, it’s possible to argue that purchases in the January transfer window aren’t usually all that cost-effective and that the best players are already ineligible for Europe.
Rafa also needs – and it’s believed wants – an assistant manager. Pako wasn’t at the club recently for the purposes of discussing a return to his role as Rafa’s right-hand man. But Sammy Lee and Frank McParland are the names that Rafa is said to have asked for. And was said to have been told he couldn’t have. Yet this was another opportunity for the owners to contribute – and having allowed Pako to leave the club before the end of his contract there was even money there already to allow it to happen. But it didn’t.
George Gillett has still not even contributed a word this year. Where’s his backing for the manager, his support for his co-owner, his delight at the latest version of the new stadium plans being put into the public domain, if not on the planning department’s desks?
Rafa Benitez has remained dignified in recent times despite the Klinsmann revelations and the mocking of his anger as “pouting” after his future had been under threat. Some players have admitted that the uncertainty off the field has hit them although others deny it. Yet nobody is willing to deny that morale is at a low level within the squad. And with morale low, confidence is low. Parry has confided, with ex-chairman David Moores, that they made a mistake in allowing the US duo into the club. Rafa will have to sell before he can buy anyone decent, which of course hits morale even more. Yet Parry expects all involved to snap out it: “My message is in the second half of the season there can be no blame and no excuses and that goes for all of us at the club. There is a lot still to play for both in the league and in the two major cup competitions we are still very much in, so let’s just get on with the job in hand.”
Of course Parry’s job is also under threat, and it’s only a matter of time before Hicks is allowed to move him on and bring his own choice in, especially in light of Parry’s attempts to block the refinancing deal Hicks wanted from going through.
One issue many fans have had with recent protests and also Rafa’s hints in public that all was not well is that this just wasn’t the “Liverpool Way”. Unfortunately, the “Liverpool Way” has never been tested under circumstances like this before, meaning that we’ve never had to wash our dirty laundry in public like this before. But perhaps the “Liverpool Way” includes washing laundry in full view of everyone if the laundry is as dirty as it’s been since the owners came in one year ago today. To sit back and let them add more and more dirt without a challenge would not have been the “Liverpool Way”. Could anyone imagine Shanks allowing it to happen without comment?
Parry says the “Liverpool Way” matters and that now is the time to stop discussing the mess: “It is a reflection of the way fans are responding at the moment that the ‘Liverpool Way’ is very important to them. The way the club behaves and conducts itself is probably more important here than it is at any other club so let’s get back to what matters and I’m in no doubt that the Liverpool way still matters.”
Those words were spoken to the Liverpool Echo, but Parry spoke in a similar way in his column in the official LFC magazine: “This is not the Liverpool we all know and love. It has never been our style to wash our dirty linen in public and it is never pleasant for anyone when it happens. The sooner we can put all of this behind us and get back to the Liverpool Way the better.” Perhaps realising that his words could either upset the manager due to being taken as yet another attack from above, or could even upset the paranoid owners, Parry added: “That’s certainly not pointing the finger at anyone. It’s a hard fact of life in football that any negative publicity quickly leads to further headlines and debate.”
Moores and Parry have been attacked for failing to do any homework on the new owners. If they had, they’d have seen Hicks wasn’t suitable ownership material for this club. The owners have been attacked for a long list of valid reasons. Rafa has been attacked by some due to the slump in form. Parry believes that it’s ok for supporters to discuss their own clubs, but not “outsiders”. Parry is perhaps playing on the normal behaviour of supporters over their owns clubs: Brothers and sisters will argue with each other, but defend each other should someone else join in the arguments – and so supporters will criticise their manager – as long as nobody from another club is listening!
Parry wants to see an end to this criticism from outside being allowed to grow, he wants Reds fans to go back to how they’d be over defending one underperforming player if criticised by some other club’s fans. “What really frustrates me is when outsiders start having a go. When this happens you know instinctively it’s time to unite, draw some strength from our togetherness and get back on the rails.” But these issues are bigger than an underperforming player. The fans are uniting, and perhaps more than they’ve done in countless years – uniting against the owners, against the lies and deceit.
As if wanting the protests to stop – like the 15-minute-plus noisy sit-in after the Sunderland game – Parry puts a message out that somehow it’s wrong for fans to voice their deep concerns about the owners, wrong for the fans to embark on a journey towards ridding the club of the parasites that pretending to be something else a year ago. He claims: “We can argue amongst ourselves, but we can’t change the club in the process.” That’s wrong Mr Parry. The supporters didn’t protest lightly, and one way or another they will at the very least make the owners reconsider their futures as owners of this club. The press coverage in the US has been fairly weak so far, but it’s building. Boycotts will spread to more than just programmes and club shops. The supporters mean business.
To be fair to Parry, his actions may have resulted in us being in this mess, and his past inactions may have seen us come close to losing Steven Gerrard and missing out on countless transfer targets, but he has been trying hard to protect the club from the Hicks steamroller. He made a lot of money when the takeover went through, but can’t be enjoying his job these days, a job in which he finds he’s not got the trust of anyone above or below him. “I’m a fan like you,” he says. “Always have been and always will be. I know how much our history and tradition means to you. We all want to be focusing on winning things. Instead, we have been embroiled in rows about other things. Yet everyone has the same basic aim which is to make our club the best in the world. To that end, I’m pleased that we have taken an important step along the new stadium path.”
Good point – the new stadium. The whole reason we got sold off. We needed a new stadium so that our match income would be similar to our rivals’ match income, so that in the future we’d be able to invest in our squads the same way they could. The new stadium was supposed to open in summer 2006, but delay after delay and a lack of success in finding investment for so long now sees the opening date – so far – as 2011. Not only that, the price has rocketed from £80m to something like £300m – and that’s really still nothing more than an estimate. At £80m it was felt the new stadium wouldn’t have a negative effect on squad building, and that stadium would have seated 60,000 people. A proposal to build a 70,000-seater was abandoned because it would have cost an extra £50m.
The new stadium plans are still special, still unique, but it seems that’s more by luck than anything else. The plans shown in July were found to be out of reach financially and so both firms of architects were asked to come up with new plans at a lower budget. This shows that there was little confidence in producing plans of similar quality at a 75% lower price. Parry himself referred to them as “downgraded”, before Hicks ordered at least the official site’s version of his statement to read “different”. Yet now Parry talks as if all this was a minor blip: “Clearly, the revised design is very similar to the one unveiled in the summer, plans that excited every one of us. They are almost identical to the naked eye. When we said we were revising things, perhaps there was a bit of consternation that we were somehow going back to the drawing board to make dramatic alterations. In fact, it was a case of looking at some costs to see if we could make them more efficient.”
So why involve two firms of architects, one of whom produced plans completely different to the July ones? Parry glosses over this: “Could we look at some aspects of the build to make it work better without losing the impact of the design that had made it so special? That is exactly what has happened and our plans remain on course.” Lucky, and how much did this cost?
Liverpool still wait for planning permission to be granted, and with the increased capacity there’s nothing whatsoever to suggest it will be granted. It’s already set to be five years late: “We plan to be ready for the summer of 2011. Work will commence this year. Obviously that will be an extremely positive and welcome step for everybody.” And again, perhaps protesting a little too much, Parry tried to play down the concerns that came from fans when the club finally admitted they were downgrading the plans. Parry tried to deny it initially, admitting it two days later, and seems surprised that uncertainty ensued: “The review clearly created a bit of uncertainty as to whether it was going to happen. The answer is: ‘Yes it will.’ We all know how crucial the new build is to the ongoing progress of the club.”
That’s not quite the case now though. Fans have started to question whether a new stadium really is crucial. Fans have begun to ask whether a rebuilding of Anfield might have been the better option after all. Fans are wondering if the increase in capacity – which remember doesn’t mean a guaranteed attendance increase at the same level – is going to cover the costs of the finance to build it, by the time interest has been paid and the owners have taken their chunk.
Words are easy, as Mr Hicks constantly claims – but we need to see some action.
And by the way Mr Parry, Mr Hicks – how about a statement on why the Gillett family have lost interest in the club?
Wow… what a great piece
A well thought out, hard hitting anaysis of where LFC are today, after 3 months of horsesh*t
I’m starting to dislike football, and sadly, losing my love for my team. I cant see us winning at Chelsea on sunday, we’re a laughing stock and rafa has lost the team
pfffft
I must be honest that I am very shocked and surprised to hear Mr Parry talking!!!
HE HAS BEEN SO QUITE THAT I MADE PEACE THAT WE DO NOT HAVE AN CEO anymore.
Since Novemeber he has been very silent when we we, the fans, have been fighting our hearts out to show why Rafa must be left to do his work.
Mr Parry chose not pride n the traditions and heritage of LFC and coming out to stop Hicks from messing the team. Parry chose not to bite the hand that feed him and he forgot his responsibility.
When Hicks recently suggested to want a truce with the fans, why did Parry not encourage Hicks to join him at press conference in at Melwood? Instead Parry has gone AWOL and was no where to be seen.
Poor Rafa, Steve G and Jammie had to struggle in the midst of confussion, to get the team playing even when they did not know what the next day holds.
Shame you Parry to come and ask us to forget and move on when you did not even do the least of supporting the team when we needed an CEO with some REAL B*LLS!!
You can as well go f-off!!
He said there’s nowt the owners can contribute and as the transfer window is now closed he’s correct, he said everyone should concentrate on the team and getting better results, they should, he’s called for an end of the public “laundry washing” they should, that includes Raffa and G+H
It’d be wise for all Raffa fans to stop the sniping and concentrate on supporting the team, it’d be wise for Raffa to start “concentrating on training and coaching his team” and it’d be wise for G+H to keep their big gobs shut as well.
Raffa isn’t doing his job if you consider his job is winning games securing CL and contending for the title. This next 4 months results will decide whether he gets one more year or he gets kicked out the club with his tail between his legs.
If Everton gets 4th no matter who our owners will be in in the summer he’s history.
So get a grip, concentrate on the team, support your team and stop this constant ripping apart of all things Liverpool – it’s NOT the Liverpool way!
Mr Parry had a different interpretation of the “Liverpool Way” when he was pushing for acceptance of rhe Hicks/Gillett buy-out. No shortage of public statements then!
I think its unfair to say rafa has lost the team, surely the team can’t fail to see (and hear) the support the fans have for rafa. the fans love him and there’s not a single player i’d rather see stay over rafa.
any player who takes their foot off the pedal now for reasons relating to manager job in-security deserves nothing more than their contract being ripped up.
surely the players can see that rafa’s the man and the owners are the bad guys. so surely they’d play for rafa no matter what, unless rafa’s making them play the way they are to show the owners that he can make or break the club, he has all the control.
i’m glad Parry has said something, and i hope he does more to stand up to Hillbilly Hicks. But i’d like to see David Moores come out and talk to the fans. And furthermore, i think someone needs to find Gillet and find out what he’s upto, or at least find out if he’s over in Dubai trying to get DIC to buy out Hicks.
I wish Parry would get sacked already
The sooner everyone starts concentrating on the team the better, Parry just by his mere presence has obviously made all the players forget how to play the same football they played before they came to Liverpool.
Reasons Parry should be sacked
scouting of players who have turned out not good enough, argeting and acquiring said players, selecting the squad of players, selecting poor starting line ups and stupid substitutions, playing players out of position, training the players, playing injured players, rotation and zonal marking
Once Parry is gone all those problems will be sorted, Yay!
What a load of Bollocks!!! This is like saying, ok everyone you said your thing now go back to your seats and be quiet….WRONG…
Now none of us could foresee the events of what would happen a year on, however, Mr Parry should have done some research into the Americans, asked about abit, something because we are in a Rolling ball of hell, and going down hill pretty fast. “The Liverpool Way”, is in fact the Front Line, to be perfectly honest , and unless the Americans sell up, which i doubt then all this “Washing” in public is going to get worse.
How can all this stop, the Americans can sell the club to people who care about the club, who understand the Traditions, the Fans, what Liverpool FC means for all of us. My Family come first, and Liverpool a very close second, but you can ask my wife, she sometime asks me who she married, me or Liverpool Football Club. I am so gutted, depressed, that all this is going on, and all i want is for Liverpool to be given back to the fans, Share Liverpool FC, its a glimmer of hope, that i feel can be made possable, and i really hope those that are involved in it manage to achive there target, all 100,000 of them.
Everything that Mr Parry or the Americans has to say won´t be worth it, untill they say Liverpool is up for sale again, only this time to people who really have Liverpool FC, its fans and everything else connected to LFC!!! at its heart……WE ARE LIVERPOOL
WAKE UP
This is a good piece but by the way who is saying that the DIC lot are a better option than the Americans. The reason we didnt choose DIC was because of a leaked memo that showed the Arabs wanted to buy it and sell it in a 5 year window.
I agree that the americans lied. But at the same time anyone who thinks that the Arabs wont use other peoples money to fund the stadium is kidding themselves. I work in the finance sector am a scouser and a red. I can scarcely remember any business who built a £300m + building with their own money, the idea doesnt make sense. Nobody would do that.
Whoever owns us will have to borrow the money, and as for the people who are asking where the £50m interest is going to come from, work it out….. 26,000 more seats of corporate and general seats times £ 50.00 – 100 plus a game, times 30 games a season, and its paid off.
Also we get about half what the Mancs get from AIG if the new regime are commercial experts then hopefully like the Mancs we will have 8 or 9 sponsors like the Mancs instead of Carlsberg alone…. Thats probably worth another £30 million a year +
I saw in the press that the Mancs reported £250m of revenue in 2007. Liverpools last annual report about £ 160m, so why are we moaning that two americans, one who is a billionaire is putting up the backing for us to borrow to get up there, we need a rich backer and we have two, we need a new stadium and they have promised one, we need new players and we have Torres and others etc….
Believe me, the bank doesnt loan anyone £300 million plus unless you can back it up, these two have to have put massive collateral up to get it. Moores was to tight to do that or he didnt have it in the first place, Parry by the way is a disgrace for letting this club be so far behind the Mancs in money terms, he is ultimately the one who is responsible, he is the CEO and is the one who if this is the wrong deal should be blamed, he negotiated the agreement didnt he.
I dont think they have been perfect but by the way there isnt a queue of people wanting to chuck money at us. I think we should be concentrating on winning, building the stadium and making money around the world at the level that the big clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid and the Mancs are, not whinging about borrowing. This is the worlds most famous club. Paying off the loan is only going to be a problem if we carry on thinking small term.
We all love the liverpool way, but by the way Football is a global business, we can sit on our arses and hand out leaflets but ultimately we will get left behind.
How many people would have a nice house if they had to wait till they had the money to pay for the whole thing, but you borrow the money in a mortgage because you know you have the job and the wages and you believe in your ability.
If the increased capacity pays off the interest and the increased sales of kit and international business makes us bigger, why the F&^* are we moaning !!!!
Mike – thanks for the comments.
Hicks and Gillett, as far as I know, are only billionaires if we’re talking dollars – but we’re talking pounds so they’re not quite there on that score.
The DIC exit strategy and this leaked memo were strongly denied by them, they claimed that this memo was a fabrication. Some say it was put out by the Americans to discredit DIC. To be honest I’m still totally open-minded on that, but it was a seven-year rather than five-year plan. And I personally see no issue with that – any serious investor would surely not make an investment and leave it totally open-ended. My understanding was that the seven-year timescale – if true – was there to show that they could move on if they wanted to, after making a profit, leaving behind a successful and self-sufficient club.
Are they a better option? I seriously doubt they could be any worse. Other than that it’s impossible to say.
I don’t think anyone expected the new stadium to be paid for with cash, and even if it was the provider of that cash would be expecting more back on their investment than they’d get from stuffing it into a building society savings account. The bigger issue is that the owners have now got us into £350m worth of debt without starting any real work on the stadium.
You mention seats at £50 – £100 a game. It’s not going to be a surprise if this pair do raise ticket prices so much, but again it’s hardly welcome. We’ll play 19 league games, hopefully at least four CL games, and maybe a couple of FA Cup and League cup games. I doubt we’ll sell out every game. And there’s an issue – we’ll not sell out every game if our “product” isn’t very good. We’ll not be in the CL if we don’t keep our squad quality ahead of those we’re competing with for a top four finish. But with the level of debt we’re going to get into, we’ll have very little left to improve the squad each year.
The margins seem so tight, there’s little room for error. Big sponsors aren’t interested in a UEFA Cup team, or even a team that barely manages top four each season. You’ve said that buyers are hardly queuing up, and I agree. But sponsors are hardly queuing up either – we’re clearly not as attractive as the Mancs in the eyes of sponsors.
I do agree that Parry could have done much, much more – but us being behind the Mancs in money terms isn’t all his fault.
Regarding the banks loaning the money – the word is that Gillett was actually stretched to his absolute limit to put the guarantees in. Hicks is less stretched, but Gillett is said to have been close to not even being able to put the guarantees in.
For someone in finance you seem to have fallen easily for the spin regarding transfers. We have brought in £15m less in sales than we spent on outgoings in the last 12 months, transfer-wise. We made something like £23m in the CL alone. The owners did not help us get Torres – we’d have been able to get him anyway given the income we earned by ourselves in the last 12 months.
The analogy for a house is all well and good – but the owners have taken their mortgage out based on the money they get from non-guaranteed overtime as well as their basic pay. If overtime stops at their place of work, they’ll struggle to pay the mortgage.
If we fail to qualify for the CL we will be struggling to pay the interest off just on this loan that covers the owners’ get-rich-quick scheme. We’ll not get the finance for the stadium if we’re struggling just to pay their debts off.
They also only got the deal for 18 months, which in the finance world is said to be unusual for a loan of that size.
David Moores and Rick Parry know, in hindsight, that they messed up big time in selling to the owners. They’re admitting as much behind the scenes.
George Gillett took out a loan against his stadium in Canada and used the loan to pay himself something like $70m dollars. And Gillett’s supposedly the nicer one of the pair.
Leaflets, songs, boycotts, protests – all are needed, because we do need to rid the club of this duo, a duo that aren’t even speaking to each other anymore.
Why did Foster leave? Why hasn’t Gillett put his name to any recent statements, or even spoken about the club?
The dream situation is we own our own club. Even though £60 million has been pledged already, pulling it off seems a long term hope. Next best is a billionaire fanatic fan willing to lose money to get us to the top. There is only one Abramovich. So we have to accept that we will be owned by business interests for profit. In contasting Hicks/Gillett with DIC you don’t need to go into no-brainers like the need to borrow to fund the stadium. All you need to consider the possible downsides. In the case of Hicks, he is on the record that in addition to us funding his buyout via dividends to cover interest payments he also wants to milk funds to fund his US teams. Second in the event we were to go through an unsuccessful run of 2 or three seasons and he was faced with funding the interest payments himself, as a classic asset stripper/leveraged buyout fan he would not flinch from a fire sale of assets (players) threatening the clubs existence in the top flight.
In the case of DIC they will want to run a profitable enterprise but with more of an interest in results on the field because surely they will wish to leverage the marketing gain for Dubai.In addition they have a self-confessed fan of the club at the helm. Say what you like about Dubai you can’t argue with the fact that they do things well – Emirates Airline, Dugas, Ducab, the development of Dubai as a tourist destination, Nad-al Sheba and horse racing. They may not be the best option but they are a safer pair of hands
Jim you make some good points.
On transfers your right we have made money but I thought that the club was £ 80m in debt when the yanks took over. So actually we didnt have money to buy torres other than borrowing.
Also as always seems to be the case in footie managers and the papers always do this back of a fag packet number on transfer funds in transfer funds out to get a net spend.
What about wages, when players leave a club they sell dont we still have to pay them up their contract? Thats how I thought it worked but I might be wrong. When players come in for free they still have massive wages and agents fees (who are rip off t”£$%) So Voronin doesnt get included in the calculation, hes probably on about fifty grand a week for 3 years so nearly 8 million quid for a supposed free transfer. If you read the club website we have signed all sorts of international kids here and there etc… all have costs.
Sponsorship isnt that what the local lad Ayre was brought in for, he was put in by the yanks according to the papers because there was no commercial team in place before ( Parry again !) and I know a lad who worked for Carlsberg about 18 months ago and said that the sponsors were treated like crap. At least the yanks have taken the intiative to improve the revenue streams. Never mind the Mancs, look on the telly the other smaller teams have more sponsors than the reds
I agree with you that the funding needs more clarity but I dont agree that they havent put anything in or that they wont have to put anything in.
football is a global business, the idea that the fans would run it to me is complete nonsense. We should have a say and vent our anger which is why we are all on ere but running it…. I dont think so
ShareLiverpoolFc is not as I understand it an initiative intending to run the club. They want to acquire beneficial ownership – the club would have a professional infrastructure reporting to a president who would only be accountable to the “owners” on a three year basis. In our glory years the club was owned by the fans, albeit rich ones. Messrs Reakes, Robinson, Smith etc were fans first, shareholders second. We were in good hands then. The gates were opened to disinterested investors when David Moores brought in Granada and then in an attempt to maintain his majority stake fended off Steve Morgan . ShareholderFC is a well meaning attempt to secure our future and shouldn’t be dismissed as amateurs trying to run the club
Rick Parry must be out of his f**king mind if he thinks theres even a chance Liverpool fans will stay silent while a scumbag like Hicks does what he likes with our club. The issue of the future ownership of our club is too f**king important for us to just leave it in the hands of a con man like Hicks.
While I agree with a number of Mike Roland’s comments about Rick Parry I couldn’t disagree more with his comments regarding Hicks and the Hicks debt. Contrary to Mike’s comment merely providing part of the security for part of a loan (for his own f**king takeover !!) and then lumping that debt onto the club in breach of clearcut assurances not to do this doesn’t earn Hicks any credit at all with me or any other sane person. The fact he lied through his teeth about this only adds insult to injury.
Hicks is already on record (in the US) as saying it is not necessary for Liverpool to win for him to make money out of the club because fans will pay based on “brand loyalty” regardless of whether the team is winning or not.
Contrary to Hicks’s endless spin the actual net investment in the playing squad since he arrived has been paltry and much smaller than numerous other prem clubs including ones like Man U who were already well ahead of us and others (like West Ham, Man City & Spurs who are all much smaller clubs than us).
If you look at DIC’s record in other areas (eg, horse racing) you will see they are not afraid to invest massively to achieve sustained long term success (and unlike Hicks they have the financial substance to actually do this as opposed to promising it with no intention of actually following through). Hicks is not actually that rich. He is a poor mans Malcolm Glazer who has to do things in a cheap tardy way precisely because he can’t afford to do things any other way.
The sad truth is that all of this should have been incredibly obvious to Rick Parry over a year ago. His complicity in the disgusting affair of the original sale should not pass unnoticed by Reds fans. However the fact remains that for the time being at least (until the club gets the owner it deserves) Parry’s mistake is something that only we fans can rectify by making it impossible for Hicks to earn money from us.