Quiet man Broughton shows mettle

THROUGHOUT THE grim course since the 1990s of English football clubs being bought by “owners” for personal enrichment, contrary to the game’s time-honoured tradition that directors should be “custodians”, none have been served with the wallop meted out yesterday to Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Beaming on the steps of the high court, Liverpool’s chairman, Martin Broughton, declaring himself “delighted”, said: “Justice has been done.” He repeated what he has said for a week, that the club’s American owners committed “flagrant abuses of undertakings” when they tried to sack Christian Purslow, Liverpool’s managing director, and Ian Ayre, the commercial director, and oppose the board’s agreed sale to New England Sports Ventures.

Hicks and Gillett, watching Broughton, Purslow and Ayre approve a sale, will lose their loans to Liverpool, which, as the keen-eyed blogger Jaimie Kanwar has pointed out, amounted to €115 million in Liverpool’s most recently published accounts, for the year to July 31st, 2009, not the €164 million the pair loaned to Kop, their Liverpool holding company.

This is not the exit Hicks and Gillett foresaw when they bought into Liverpool and the Premier League’s expanding TV revenues which Hicks, in particular, spoke of so eagerly at the time. That loss, and the sale of their shares in the club for nothing rather than the fat profit they envisaged, has been wrought by Broughton, the blue-chip chairman who kept his counsel for months, then came out fighting.

During the quiet time, Broughton’s silence sowed doubt. He is a Chelsea fan, and as the chairman of British Airways, not the most obviously sympathetic figure to the Anfield faithful. Very little information was released about what he and Barclays Capital, appointed to find a buyer for Liverpool, were actually doing. Fans winced during the embarrassments of the deals that never were, fronted by the Hong Kong wheeler-dealer Kenneth Huang and the Syrian-Canadian former pizza shop proprietor, Yahya Kirdi.

It was also difficult to understand what boardroom sources meant when they insisted Broughton, Purslow and Ayre had the right to outvote Hicks and Gillett in a decision over a sale. Sure, they had a board majority, but directors can normally only recommend a deal to shareholders, which, as half-each owners of Liverpool, the American pair could surely reject.

Last Tuesday the quiet man finally showed his mettle. Despite worldwide attention and relentless prodding from the media and fans, Broughton and Purslow had managed to negotiate with NESV and Singapore businessman Peter Lim without a leak. Purslow observed, as many serious business people do, that deals which are concluded are usually ones nobody talked publicly about beforehand.

With the NESV deal agreed and Hicks and Gillett having sought to block it by sacking Purslow and Ayre and replacing them with Hicks’s own son, Mack, and Mack’s assistant, Broughton took the decision to go to court, and go public. Suddenly he was on television, radio, on a conference call with journalists and even giving Hicks and Gillett a mauling on Liverpool’s official website.

Broughton revealed what we had not been told earlier: he had not taken on the job of becoming Liverpool’s chairman, getting the club sold and relieved of its appalling debt, without having the power he required. He had insisted Hicks and Gillett give the undertaking to RBS that only Broughton had the right to appoint and remove directors, and that they would not obstruct a “reasonable” sale process. Saying, straightforwardly that Hicks and Gillett had “no credibility,” Broughton said: “I was not prepared to be their patsy.” They now know he meant what he said.

• Guardian Service

Kuyt could be out for three months

LIVERPOOL’S CONFIDENCE that Fernando Torres will be fit for Sunday’s Merseyside derby has been tempered by fears Dirk Kuyt could be out for three months with an ankle injury, writes Andy Hunter.

The Holland forward suffered the injury during the 4-1 Euro 2012 qualifying victory over Sweden on Tuesday. A scan was unable to provide a clear diagnosis due to swelling around his right ankle and it may be several days before the 30-year-old discovers the extent of the problem.

The early indication, however, is that Kuyt sustained serious ligament damage. Roy Hodgson is also awaiting confirmation of the back injury that forced Daniel Agger out of Denmark’s win over Cyprus.

• Guardian Service