Next Gen News

• Liverpool chairman expects £300m deal next week
• Profile: prospective new owner John W Henry
• Timeline: Life under Tom Hicks and George Gillett
• Comment below or email Steve Busfield or on Twitter

2:10 pm: On the subject of the coming together of the "national sports" of the US and England, the BBC has "When baseball meets football". Two great links in that piece:

• Henry and his partners, Werner and Lucchino were declared Best Owners in Baseball by Sports Illustrated in 2009

• Earlier this week the Red Sox owners took out a full page advert apologising for missing out on the play-offs

1.57pm: Back on the Liverpool Red Sox theme, Eddie Smithwick emails:

"I can reliably inform you the First Base bar was baseball themed but has been closed for 3 years. I drive past it on my way home each day. What I can confirm for you is that baseball is played regularly a little further down the road at Maiden Lane sports field throughout the summer. As for Liverpool being renamed the Liverpool Red Sox, you have more chance of Roy Hodgson winning manager of the season...."

1:35 pm: It hasn't yet been suggested that Liverpool might become Liverpool Red Sox, and surely the potential new owners would be foolish to even contemplate it, but an email from John Penton points out:

"Liverpool, and Anfield in particular, is a hotbed of English Baseball. There is a bar, not too far from Anfield , called First Base that is full of baseball memorabilia. Take a look at the English Baseball Association website and, if you look under 'History', you will see there is even a suggestion that Liverpool seamen brought the game to the USA. Baseball is coming home!!!!!!!"

1:31 pm: A very useful Q&A from the Press Association tackles some of the complicated financial questions:

Q. Why are Hicks and Gillett so against the offer?
A. They believe the price of £300million grossly under-values the club - and because they would each take a massive financial hit.
Q. But £300million seems like a lot of money - isn't that far more than they paid for the club in 2007?
A. Yes, they paid £219million, funded entirely by bank loans, but since then the debt has swelled due to interest and other fees to £280million, and they have invested £144.4million into Kop Holdings via a company registered in the Cayman Islands, which was then lent to Liverpool.
Q. What would Hicks and Gillett be left with if the £300million buy-out goes ahead?
A. Around £200million would go towards paying off the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia debts. RBS would be likely to leave around £30million of the debt as a credit facility for the new owners. Only after all the other creditors are paid would any left-over cash go to Hicks and Gillett towards the £144.4million loan they put in.
Q. What about the penalty fees that Hicks and Gillett have built up with RBS?
A. They are about £ 45million but they are certainly subject to legal challenges, too.
Q. So what size of loss are Hicks and Gillett contemplating?
A. A sizeable one, even as much as £100million.

1.14pm:Video interview with Barry Glendenning for sale Liverpool: "They 'Re only interested in huge profits"

12.28pm: To recap the events of the last few hours in the life of Liverpool Football Club:

• The board of Liverpool FC has agreed to sell the club to the US owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. In a statement on its website, Liverpool said it had accepted a bid from New England Sports Ventures (NESV), which owns the US baseball team, in defiance of the club's American owners. 9:58 am: The deal with New England Sports Ventures would value Liverpool FC at about £300m.

• However, any deal would be subject to lengthy litigation after the club 'S owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett attempt to dismiss the chairman, Martin Broughton , and two other board members, who were prepared to accept the NESV offer.

• In response, an official statement from the club said the deal had gone through. The club accused the American duo of opposing the offer because the bid would not give them enough profit for their shares.

• In a Q&A on the Liverpool FC website, chairman Broughton says he is confident the deal will go through. But the sale will be subject to a court hearing that the board is acting legally. Broughton said: "Essentially when I took the role they (Hicks and Gillett) gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings."

• More about prospective new owner John W Henry in this profile.

• David Conn explains what might happen next, and the crucial role is played by the Royal Bank of Scotland, who gave Liverpool Oct. 15 deadline to repay debts.

• Timeline of life under Hicks and Gillett

12.31pm: "Liverpool FC sale could take weeks to complete", say lawyers, reports Owen Gibson.

Daniel Liptrott, partner, Eversheds, says:

Maxim usually sell something that would be the owners of assets that must approve the sale of it. However, water has become murky when other stakeholders are involved, as debts to suppliers in a situation of LFC.

When the chairman, Martin Broughton, was brought in at the behest of RBS, the bank â€" owed £237m â€" ensured that the balance of power on the board resided with Broughton, the managing director, Christian Purslow, and the commercial director, Ian Ayre.

They have argued that they have a duty to act in the best interests of the company and the principal lenders, while Gillett and Hicks have so far blocked any sale that does not return a substantial profit on their original investment.

12.20pm: So, Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton clearly thinks that the owners are acting unconstitutionally and that the sale will go through. He also has some words about the potential/likely/possible new owners:

Why, in your opinion, is the New England Sports Ventures Law of the new owner of FC Liverpool?

I think both of them would have been excellent new owners. New England have a lot of experience in developing, investing in and taking Boston Red Sox - as the closest parallel - from being a club with a wonderful history, a wonderful tradition that had lost the winning way, and bringing it back to being a winner. Their commitment to winning is what it's all about there and they've extended it from Boston Red Sox to Nascar and other things, but Red Sox is the main one.

Will the debt burden be removed completely?

To all intents and purposes, yes. All of the acquisition debt that was involved in the current owners acquisition will be removed completely. We'll still have what we call normal working capital debt and there's a facility there for the new stadium which will remain in place, but to all intents and purposes all the major debt that has been causing our problem has been paid off.

Is there a commitment from them to progress the new stadium project?

12.14pm: Liverpool FC's official website now has a Q&A with Liverpool FC Chairman Martin Broughton on the takeover. Here are some key parts of that Q&A:

Can you explain exactly what the situation is right now?

It certainly has been dramatic. The latest position is that we have a sale agreement in place, we've agreed the sale to New England Sports Ventures, that sale is subject to a number of conditions like Premier League approval and other normal conditions. The specific additional condition is that it's subject to confirmation that the Board acted validly in drawing up the sale documents.

Last night fans read a statement on the official website claiming that the owners had sought to remove Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre from the Board. What was the reasoning behind this and were the owners successful?

The court will ultimately decide whether the owners were successful. The reasoning behind it was that the owners felt we were reviewing two bids which they considered undervalued the club and therefore they wished to remove Christian and Ian and replace them with Mack Hicks, who is Tom's son, and Lori McCutcheon, who also works with him.

We don't think it was valid to do it. Essentially when I took the role they gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings.

Just to clarify, what needs to happen now for the sale to be finalised?

The key thing is the court case. We need to go to the court to get a declaratory judgement, which is for the court to declare that we did act validly in completing the sale agreement, and then the buyers can complete the sale. We have to get Premier League approval and I'm certain that's not going to be an issue. There are one or two minor things like that but the key issue is the court, which should meet I would think next week sometime. That is the most likely time, in short order.

Maybe the owners of a block sale of LFC in the New England Sports business?

Well, we have to win a court case. So effectively yes, if they win the court case, they can block the sale. But then we may have one or two other thoughts in mind as well.

Could the sale process be dragged through the courts for months before a resolution is reached?

No, I don't think so. We should get a declaratory judgement I would have thought probably by the end of next week, in short order. There is an appeal process but that is also very fast.

12:09 PM: A lot of debate below the line appears to be about whether Liverpool will/should/might be docked points should they go into administration. PA quotes sources saying that Liverpool will NOT be docked points. But that is unofficial at the moment.

12:03 pm: StreetStories.com, that, say, "Premier online site covering managed futures, hedge funds, commodity trading advisors (CTA) and a large market traders master the last 40 years", has an interesting background on John Henry W ' glory years as a fund manager . In 1992 Henry was Number 6 in the Financial World: Wall Street 100:

Back when John Henry was raising soybeans, he reaped a $75,000 windfall one day by hedging his crop. Although today he ascribes that feat to "pure luck," he was hooked for life on the futures market. By 1981 Henry was managing money full-time, plying six mathematical models he devised to trade everything from currencies to grain futures. Last year, on the strength of long stakes in Japanese bonds and assorted currency wagers, he outshone renowned rivals Paul Jones and Bruce Kovner by posting a 69% gain in his biggest fund, the Financial and Metals Portfolio. At year-end, Henry, 42, was overseeing more than $690 million in assets.

11:54 AM: Reader Alex Gale offers this theory via email:

What if this bid acceptance/refusal is a ruse? Due to all the publicity it is pretty much official that, should the club revert to ownership by RBS, they will sell it at probably much the same price as the bid to the Red Sox chap. This in turn smokes out any other potential interest, god knows where from, most likely Thailand or a Gulf State, even China and they are forced to make a bid before the bank takes ownership. The price goes up and the two yanks come away having at least covered their investment cost…

11.38am: I think it might be worth repeating from a piece elsewhere, David Conn trying to explain what may happen from here:

As for what happens next in this endgame being played by Broughton, Purslow and Ayre against the bank deadline of 15 October, it is still in flux. Hicks and Gillett sought to remove Purslow and Ayre yesterday to prevent the three, as a majority, approving a sale of the club to John W Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, or another, unnamed, Asian buyer. Neither, apparently, would have delivered a personal payday to the Americans. The statement said: "This matter is now subject to legal review."

The power, everybody knows, rests with RBS, the collapsed bank now 84% owned by the British taxpayer who bailed it out. Yet the last thing the bank wants is to be in charge of a football club as high-profile, crisis-hit and emotionally volatile as Liverpool. All along, the possibility most pondered has been for RBS to reclaim the club on 15 October, if Hicks and Gillett do not pay up, with a buyer lined up for the bank immediately to sell to.

There are many twists lying in wait before so clinical a solution can be orchestrated, especially with the club's three directors having decided to make no secret of their opposition to Hicks and Gillett.

11.34am: Interestingly, the Liverpool Echo's version of this story states: "Liverpool FC sold to New England Sports Ventures"

It is not until the last paragraph of the story adds: "The statement also said the sale conditional on the approval of the Premier League, as well as dispute resolution conference room and other issues,".

11.26am: Checking the comments below the line, I thought this was interesting post from New-York reader therentedhat:

Henry's a good owner, but he has changed Fenway to help it make more money for the team, while not building a new stadium, primarily because Red Sox fans won't allow it...

I put it to you this way. I was talking to an friend of mine who has a fairly superficial understanding of the football...

He asks me, "What about Liverpool?"

I respond, "They are broke. They have Gerrard and a couple of other players, but they're broke."

"Broke, how that possible?"

\\ "They are in joint possession of the owner of the Texas Rangers and the owner of Montreal Candians. "

\\ "Oh, shit."

Pop those corks on the Merseyside tonight. You've earned it with all that marching and sign making and that.

The Sox got destroyed by injuries this season and still were in it to the 2nd to last Sunday of the season. If the Sox had Youk and Pedoria they would have won close to a hundred games this year.

11.06am: Here is the reaction from some Liverpool fans websites. Barry Glendenning also considers some of the other views (not necessarily that the brand Red):

On Twitter, Manchester United fan and Sky television presenter Eamonn Holmes said. "We don't buy baseball teams - because we don't understand it, so why don't these American companies take the hint and follow by example?" he tweeted, speaking for those unable to distinguish between a shortstop and a pitcher. Self-styled joke-loving Kopite Davylpool was quick to respond, telling Holmes "we don't buy baseball teams because we can't afford them", before labelling him… ah, go and see for yourself.

10.49am: US tycoons George Gillett and Tom Hicks offered £435m to buy Liverpool in early 2007 and when the deal went through it valued the club at £219m. The plan was to build a new stadium too, but a year later the pair were barely speaking to each other. The relationship with the supporters deteriorated fast, with Tom Hicks Jr, a board member, responding to an email from a fan with a foul-mouthed tirade. In April this year Gillett and Hicks announced the appointment of British Airways chairman Martin Broughton, to oversee the sale of the club, saying: "Owning Liverpool Football Club over these past three years has been a rewarding and exciting experience for us and our families. Having grown the Club this far we have now decided together to look to sell the Club to owners committed to take the Club through its next level of growth and development."

This year a string of possible deals have been touted, including Chinese investor Kenny Huang, a consortium of Middle East investors and private equity firm Blackstone.

And then, in September, Hicks decided to try to maintain control, and he tried to refinance debt of ?? 237m Royal Bank of Scotland. If you were unable to find a new loan, Texas may be forced to abandon their investments on 15 October. From that date looming, and the ?? 60m fine variety of opportunities, comes the Revelation of John W Henry 'S bid.

10.34am: Liverpool will not be docked points if it goes into administration, according to Press Association sources. The PA story says:

There have been suggestions that if Tom Hicks and George Gillett block a £300million takeover for the club by New England Sports Ventures, owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, then their holding company would be put into administration by the Royal Bank of Scotland over their unpaid £280million debts.

This will not lead to an automatic deduction of points for the Reds however - Premier League to clarify the rules regarding the parent company, so that if the club itself is fully solvent entity - like Liverpool - the penalty should not apply.

A Premier League source told Press Association Sport: "The aim of the regulations is primarily to capture clubs who have gone into insolvency. This is manifestly not the case with Liverpool Football Club."

10.11am: So, who is the man who now wants to take over Liverpool FC? John W Henrymade his fortune in hedge funds before using it to treat their sports interests, with the Boston Red Sox baseball team in NASCAR, a huge American Series racing. In accordance with this profile , his personal fortune was worth about £540m before the credit crunch, meaning that he is not in the Abramovich league.

He does, however, have a good track record of success with his teams. He owned a string of minor league baseball teams, and then the Major League Florida Marlins, before he and his partners in New England Sports Ventures, Tom Werner and the New York Times Company, bought the Red Sox in 2002.

Within two years of purchase Red Sox, he helped to end "The Curse of the Bambino" . (The Red Sox went 86 years without a World Series after selling the legendary Babe Ruth to their biggest rivals, the NY Yankees).

Liverpool fans may also be pleased to know that Henry resisted temptations to move the club out of the historic Fenway Park and instead developed the old stadium.

Likewise, his Nascar team won their first Daytona 500 in 2009.

10:08 am: I see that below the line there are many, many questions. Obviously we will be trying to work out the answers to as many of them as possible today: clearly the most important of which is, will this deal happen? But then there are questions about how it could happen, what will Hicks and Gillett do, what do we know about the Boston Red Sox owner, is another American taking over a major English sporting institution a good thing, etc etc etc.

9.16am: Liverpool's celebrity supporters produced this video against Hicks and Gillett.

9:09 am:

So, Liverpool, bottom of the Premiership after their worst league start for donkeys, think they may have found a saviour. But the current owners, reviled by many, are not happy. This could be tricky to unpick.

Through the day we will try to unpick the details, work out who will end up owning the club, and gauge the reaction of fans, the league, the various claimants.

8:25 am:

Liverpool Football Club has agreed the sale to the US owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, the club announced this morning.

In a statement on its website, Liverpool said its board had agreed the sale of the club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV), owners of the Boston Red Sox, New England Sports Network, Fenway Sports Group and Rousch Fenway Racing.

However, the sale of a fire in the Conference Room of battle, revealing the degree of the split at the highest club level. Late last night's American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, was believed to have rejected the offer NESV , despite the three other directors at Liverpool being prepared to accept it.

This led to an official statement from Liverpool accusing Hicks and Gillett of opposing the offer because the bid would not give them enough profit for their shares.

However, this morning the club announced that the sale had gone through.

\\ "I am pleased that we were able to successfully complete the sale process that was thorough and extensive", said chairman Martin Broughton Liverpool.

"The board decided to accept NESV's proposal on the basis that it best met the criteria we set out originally for a suitable new owner. NESV's philosophy is all about winning and they have fully demonstrated that at Red Sox."

"We've met them in Boston, London and Liverpool over several weeks and I am immensely impressed with what they have achieved and with their vision for Liverpool Football Club," Broughton added.

\\ "By removing the burden of the acquisition debt, the proposal allows us to focus on investment in the team. I'm just disappointed that the owners have tried everything to get things happening, and what we have to go through trials in order to complete sale. "

The sale is conditional on Premier League approval, resolution of a dispute concerning Board membership and other matters.