Redwatch: Financial mire at Anfield breeds mistrust

Jun 11 2008 by Andy Proudfoot, Liverpool Daily Post

I REMEMBER the days when following a football team was so simple. Before the days of wall-to-wall television coverage; before that interweb thingy was invented; before Radio 5 Live interrupted Sports Report to broadcast live commentary on Portsmouth versus Wigan.

All you had to do was pick up your morning paper, turn to the back page and devour the latest news and reports, reading the paper from back to front (if you got that far).

Nowadays I have to order the Financial Times and the Economist to keep abreast of takeovers, accounts, ownership structures, credit crunches and leveraged buy-outs.

The lunatic world of football finance grows ever more complicated, and the ordinary fan becomes more remote from the behemoths that used to be our local football clubs.

No wonder our grounds lack atmosphere; those in attendance are probably busy checking the stock prices and interest rate movements to see if their club is about to go into administration.

The last fortnight has been instructive: when we should have been speculating on the relative merits of Spain, France and Italy in breathless anticipation of a European festival of football, the headlines have been dominated by the ludicrous amounts of money offered for, and to, Cristiano Ronaldo; the £200,000 per week allegedly tempting Ronaldinho to join the Eastlands gulag; and of course Abramovich’s quest to hand another £100m to next door’s cat, or whoever else passes his front door when he takes another astute decision over his club’s managerial arrangements. Bizarrely, Michel Platini, the UEFA supremo, also chose the eve of the tournament to launch a tirade against the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea carrying huge debt to provide them with an unfair advantage over other clubs, going so far as to say this was ‘cheating.’

Now there’s probably a serious point in there somewhere, but shouting ‘big boys did it’ or pulling tongues is not the best way to get it across.

Sadly, our own club has now become embroiled in the financial quagmire, good and proper.

The publication of the accounts of Kop Football (Holdings) Ltd, the ultimate holding company in the structure which owns Liverpool FC, gave rise to a batch of headlines which were bound to reignite the smouldering resentment burning in the hearts of even the most moderate fan, patiently waiting to see if another Torres is due to arrive, or whether a spade will enter the ground in Stanley Park. Talk of losses, levels of debt, write-offs and travel expenses which would make an MEP blush are bound to be seized on by those who seek to discredit the American owners as evidence they are only seeking to line their own pockets.

The ownership structure is now so complicated that it is hard for seasoned financial commentators to disentangle, let alone your average football fan; Kop Holdings is apparently ‘two levels above Liverpool FC’ in the structure, and inter-company loans complicate the picture further.

This level of complexity breeds mistrust, and generates suspicion that its purpose is not just to keep our money out of the grubby hands of the taxman, but to prevent us all from forming a clear view of the owners’ intentions.

If the Gruesome Twosome are to have any hope of turning round fans’ opinions, they need to invest some time and energy into explaining exactly how their financial plans stack up, how the cost of the stadium is to be funded, and how the revenue will be generated to pay for it.

We might not all understand it, but we’d appreciate the effort. And perhaps then, we could go back to worrying about the footie, not the FTSE.