The most widely discussed topic in English football now is about the future of Liverpool, the most successful club in the history of English football. The club with 18 league titles and 8 European trophies, is currently sitting in the relegation zone and facing a 9 point deduction which will put them at -3 points, 21 points adrift of leaders Chelsea, 14 and 12 points away from 4th placed Arsenal and 10th placed Fulham respectively. So let’s now see how one of the ‘Top 4’ Clubs reached a position of such bother and what lies in store for them.
So how exactly did Liverpool reach the brink of Administration?
Administration is faced by a Football club when they are unable to pay their outstanding debts. The club can notify the court of its inability to pay their debts and they will be declared ‘in administration’ whereby all the activities of club will fall under the court. The first English club to enter administration was Charlton Athletic in 1984, although they were not reduced any points then. The system of reducing points for a club entering administration only started about 6 years ago with Wrexham being the first club to be reduced 10 points which resulted in their relegation from League 1 to League 2.
Liverpool’s debts are due to the fact that current owners Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillette were unable to pay back the money they borrowed from the Royal Bank of Scotland for purchasing the club. If the RBS goes to the court for the money that is owed to them then Liverpool will be put in administration and will be docked 9 points.
Who is responsible for the current state of Liverpool?
The easiest answer to this question will be to point towards the two American owners whose debt has now been transferred into the club. But are they the only reason why Liverpool is in such a pitiable state? I don’t think so. One point to note here is that Manchester United who is also currently owned by an American has a debt which is much higher than that of the Liverpool owners, but Manchester United is generating enough income so that Malcolm Glazer is finding no problems in paying his loans.
So why hasn’t Liverpool been able to generate the kind of income that Manchester united has. The reason for this is that Liverpool’s dominance of the English football was steadily declining for the last 20 years, ever since the premiership began. Their last English league title came in the 1989-90 season. This was a period when the Premier league clubs were starting to build a huge fan base in Asia. Liverpool as a result of their fading off and the emergence of Arsenal and Chelsea in the league hasn’t been able to generate a fan base as large as the other 3 clubs from the Top 4 and are subsequently losing out on the huge source of income that is Asia.
Another person to blame is their previous manager Rafael Benitez. The Spaniard never got a full understanding of the English game and although he can boast of some successes in the European stage he has not done justice to a club of the stature of Liverpool. His activities in the transfer market rarely proved successful. He failed to bring in good backups for the two top players in the team Gerrard and Torres, as a result of which Liverpool really suffered if one of the were injured or was not in form. One of his worst moments as a manager would be when he failed to sign Gareth Barry from Aston Villa. Barry who was eager to leave Villa for some Champions League action didn’t want to join Liverpool because of Benitez and his style of play. He also couldn’t stop the exodus of star Liverpool players to other big clubs like Riise going to Roma and Alonso going to Real. His failure to sign good replacements for these departed players aided in the fall of Liverpool.
In the 2008-09 season Liverpool finished 2nd behind Manchester United in the premier league with a rare double in the Red derby. Everyone predicted the 2009-10 was going to be the season of Liverpool and they would finally regain the title. But the season didn’t go well at all for Liverpool. It all started when they lost one of their best players Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid. The replacement signed Alberto Aquilani from Roma couldn’t adjust to English football at all. All this resulted in Liverpool finishing a disappointing 7th in the league and getting knocked out in the first round in the Champions league.
As a result of the poor season Benitez was sacked and he was replaced by Roy Hodgson who had just led a mediocre Fulham team to the Europa League final. Hodgson’s season started positively when he successfully completed his preseason challenge of keeping Gerrard and Torres in Liverpool. He also signed experienced Christian Poulsen and Joe Cole who was supposed to be ‘the savior’ of the Kop. He lost Javier Mascherano to Barcelona but signed Raul Meirless from Porto to replace him. But when the season started Liverpool were worse than their last season, with Torres out of form they were finding really hard to score goals as a result of which they are now have only 6 points from 7 games and in the relegation zone. They were also knocked out of the League cup by league two side Northampton. Because of the lack of success, Liverpool were not getting as much money and sponsorship as their 'Top 4' compatriots. Meanwhile the Club was put up for sale by their American owners but there were not many suitors because of the high asking price.
Liverpool, which was once a dream club for English players, are now finding it hard to sign players. They found it very hard to get a left back to replace Insua. Even Luke Young, who is only a half decent player didn’t want to join Liverpool. They finally settled for Paul Konchesky, who also doesn’t have the standard for a team with Champion’s league aspirations. Hodgson found it difficult to bring two of the stars from his Fulham team, Breda Hangeland and Bobby Zamora, to Liverpool because of lack of funds.
What would happen if Liverpool are put in Administration?
In addition to the reduction of 9 points, John Henry the owner of Boston Red Sox has told that he will back out from buying Liverpool if they go into administration.
In the last 2 clubs to go into Administration in England, Portsmouth was relegated from the Premier league to the Championship and now finds themselves at the bottom of the Championship and Crystal palace escaped relegation from the Championship with just one point.
Although a nine point reduction may not result in Liverpool being relegated, it will kill their chances of getting in to even one of the top 10 positions and it would prove very difficult to keep their star players if they don’t finish in the top 10. Glen Johnson has already started to take Spanish lessons in anticipation of a move to Real Madrid. And if they are indeed relegated, all the top players have relegation clauses written into their contracts, which allow them to leave the club without finishing their contracts.
So the situation is not looking good for Liverpool. Let’s hope that they can find some way to climb out of all this mess. We don’t want another Leeds. The people at Liverpool, the old or the new one should come up with big changes if they have to turn around the fortunes of the club. Maybe wearing a bright pink kit like their neighbors’ would help.
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