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• Roy Hodgson hopes Tom Hicks and George Gillett can sell up
• New manager admits change of owner could affect his position

Roy Hodgson has said it is imperative that Liverpool’s co-owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, sell the club this summer even though a takeover could affect his own position at Anfield.

The new Liverpool manager spoke to the Americans in a brief conference call on Wednesday night and, at his official unveiling the following day, promised to avoid the ownership issues that have blighted the club and the reign of his predecessor, Rafael Benítez, in recent years. Nevertheless, at a time when the Liverpool futures of Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano are all uncertain, and with only limited funds available for squad rebuilding, Hodgson believes the prospects of recovery are inextricably linked to the timing of Hicks’s and Gillett’s departure.

Asked if he wanted the club to change hands at the earliest opportunity, the 62-year-old said: “Absolutely. That is what all the fans want. They want new ownership, maybe in the way Manchester City found new ownership. I don’t know whether that would be a possibility but I can understand the fans wanting that. The fans want the best for Liverpool Football Club. They want the best players and the best quality football, and they know the only way to get that is to have the quality of players on the pitch and they cost money.”

Hodgson admitted his arrival at Anfield was due, in part, to Liverpool’s £350m debt and the associated problems that have plagued the club since Hicks and Gillett arrived in February 2007. He added: “It’s very unusual to get the job at the club you want to be at if something is not there niggling in the background. Obviously the thing in the background here is the financial situation.

“The financial situation doesn’t bother me. This club will always find a buyer and there’s always going to be people who want to be the owner of Liverpool Football Club. It’s just a question of when it can be sold and whether the new owners, when they come in, are prepared to back the club as we all think it should be backed.”

Liverpool’s chairman, Martin Broughton, has confirmed there have been no offers for the club since Hicks and Gillett announced it was officially for sale in April, although he hopes to receive a first round of bids by mid-July and complete the sale before the end of August. A takeover would raise the prospect of the new owners wanting to appoint their own manager, but Hodgson is confident his work will dissuade such a move.

The Liverpool manager, who confirmed he is contractually protected “to some extent” if new owners decided they wanted a change, said: “You can’t ever get stone guarantees with these things. I believe that I was selected fommm,,,,r the right reasons and that if there are new owners they would go along with that as well. If they didn’t, and the new owners wanted a complete change, then I would have to accept that. It wouldn’t make a major dent in my career but it would be very sad because I want to work here.”

Hicks and Gillett remain the target of derision among Liverpool supporters and an “Independence Day Rally” will be held in the city tomorrow, organised by the Spirit of Shankly supporters group. The rally, at St George’s Hall from noon, features speeches from John Aldridge and the newly elected MP for Walton, Steve Rotheram, the comedian John Bishop plus several musicians, and the SOS will launch its proposal for supporters to buy into the club.

A spokesperson for SOS said: “This is our chance to send out a message that we want true independence, not only from Tom and George, but others who work the same way as they do. We no longer want leveraged buyout merchants with their eyes on the accounts, not the football pitch.”

LiverpoolRoy HodgsonBusinessAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

• Americans hire Barclays Bank to find new owners
• BA chairman appointed to oversee investment

Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Liverpool’s unpopular co-owners, are expected to officially put the club up for sale this week but are unlikely to appease the manager, Rafael Benítez, or supporters opposed to their reign with an imminent departure from Anfield.

The Americans have received an option to extend their refinancing deal this summer from the Royal Bank of Scotland, their lenders, in response to the struggle to bring new investment into the club. The pair have hired the mergers and acquisitions arm of Barclays Bank to help find a buyer and are expected to announce the appointment of Martin Broughton, the chairman of British Airways, as independent chairman early this week.

Broughton’s task will be to oversee the search for investment and secure the Americans’ latest refinancing package at Liverpool in the meantime. Previously, and in a sign of their fractured business relationship, Hicks and Gillett appointed two separate banks, Rothschild and Merrill Lynch, to find an investor but have failed to receive an offer that meets their asking price of around £500m. The only official offer to emerge was The Rhône Group’s proposal of £110m for a 40% stake in Liverpool, although its deadline for a response passed last Monday.

The appointment of Barclays and Broughton, a Chelsea fan, had raised hope among Liverpool supporters opposed to Hicks and Gillett of their swift exit and much-needed transfer funds for Benítez this summer. However, the absence of any suitable offers has led the co-owners to seek an extension to their refinancing deal and they have made progress with the RBS following talks in London last week.

It is understood a condition of RBS’s latest refinancing deal – which amounts to a six-month extension – is a commitment from Hicks and Gillett that they intend to relinquish their hold on Liverpool. The Americans are expected to announce they will stand down as co-chairmen this week although, given the extension from the RBS and the bank’s insistence that £100m of the club’s £237m debt is repaid, their controversial tenure is likely to continue for some time.

That could have an impact on Benítez’s spending power in the summer, with the prospect of Champions League qualification fading after today’s goalless draw at home to Fulham. “I don’t have too much information on this at this moment,” the Liverpool manager said.There have been reports of a second refinancing offer to Hicks and Gillett, comprising a three-year deal worth £300m from Barclays that would see the bank displace the RBS. Anfield officials have distanced themselves from a refinancing deal with Barclays. However, Hicks and Gillett could explore a deal with Barclays as a fallback option.

LiverpoolPremier LeagueBusinessAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

• RBS chief executive receives hundreds of messages
• Threat of boycott if the club’s loans are extended

Liverpool supporters have begun a coordinated email campaign to the Royal Bank of Scotland warning of a product boycott if the taxpayer-owned bank provides a long-term extension to the club’s £237m loans.

The bank confirmed there had been correspondence from fans but declined to expand on its nature. The business wire service Bloomberg reported that the bank’s chief executive, Stephen Hester, has received hundreds of messages, each with a different individual’s signature.

“It is my understanding that, if the refinancing deal is renegotiated beyond July 2010, then a campaign in protest against the Royal Bank of Scotland will take place which will include billboards with anti-RBS messages encouraging Liverpool fans to boycott RBS,” the emails say. “As a British tax payer and a lifelong Liverpool fan, I can assure you that I am not happy that my hard-earned money is being used to pay for the purchase of Liverpool Football Club for George Gillett and Tom Hicks.”

Although RBS did not express any opinion about the messages, the banking sector has always had concerns about the effect on retail operations of a fan backlash if institutions’ corporate lending arms make life difficult for clubs. That did not appear to be the case, however, as fans were quiescent when Barclays made a stand over the stricken former Southampton owner, Southampton Leisure Holdings, closing off the club’s overdraft and effectively pushing it into administration.

Paradoxically this time the pressure from Liverpool fans is for banks specifically to cause financial problems for the club. The campaign is an attempt to starve the club’s American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, of credit and, if the bank refuses to roll over the club’s borrowings, it could precipitate a financial crisis at Anfield.

Few lenders are willing to offer new facilities in the current climate and Hicks and Gillett have so far shown no great enthusiasm for injecting their own equity.

Hicks last year suffered the indignity of defaulting on the $525m (£345m) debt in his Hicks Sports Group holding company, leading to the sale of the Texas Rangers franchise and much of its surrounding real estate to an investment group including the club’s president, the former pitcher Nolan Ryan, in January.

Despite that successful transaction – reportedly worth £310m – Hicks’s personal wealth is estimated to have slipped in the past 12 months. Forbes calculated in its most recent rich list that Hicks had lost his billionaire status over the course of the year, now being worth $950m. Liverpool are currently exploring the market’s appetite for a £100m third-party investment.

LiverpoolPremier LeagueBusinessMatt Scottguardian.co.uk