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Posts Tagged ‘money’

• Roy Hodgson acts quickly to sign 27-year-old midfielder
• Portuguese seen as ideal replacement for Javier Mascherano

Liverpool have moved quickly to replace Javier Mascherano by agreeing a £10.7m package with Porto tonight for the Portugal international Raul Meireles.

Meireles, one of Portugal’s more impressive players in the World Cup, is understood to have agreed personal terms and, if everything goes according to plan, the deal will be completed over the weekend, dependent on the 27-year-old passing a medical examination.

The transfer was rushed through this evening after Mascherano finally got his wish to leave Anfield, joining Barcelona in a £20m deal that freed up the money for Liverpool to bring in a cheaper replacement.

Meireles is available for a low fee because he only has two years of his contract left and Porto have been trying to sell him rather than risk losing him on a free transfer in the future.

The player has been prominently linked with Manchester United over the past month but does not fit into the club’s policy under the Glazer family of not signing players for big money if they are aged 26 or above, Dimitar Berbatov being the exception to the rule.

Liverpool do not operate with such restrictions and the manager Roy Hodgson will hope Meireles can make his debut in the league game at Birmingham City tomorrow week.

LiverpoolPremier LeagueDaniel Taylorguardian.co.uk

• Plan would see current executive structure remain in place
• Gillett and Hicks unable to block bid if approved by board

Kenny Huang has delivered an outline takeover proposal to Liverpool’s chairman, Martin Broughton, pledging to erase the club’s debt, build a new stadium and to provide significant funding for player transfers.

Marc Ganis, Huang’s long-term associate and a sports consultant who lives in Chicago, today confirmed that he made contact with the Liverpool board on Monday on behalf of the Hong Kong-based investment vehicle, QSL Sports.

“We haven’t submitted a formal proposal but we submitted the broad parameters of what a proposal would look like to see if it would be welcomed, and it was,” said Ganis. Preparing to fund the deal, as revealed by the Guardian yesterday, is the China Investment Corporation, as a “passive investor”.

Also involved in QSL alongside Huang and Ganis is Guang Yang, a senior investment-fund manager with Franklin Templeton. Huang and Yang would oversee the day-to-day operations at the club, however Ganis reassured fans that the current executive structure, led by the managing director, Christian Purslow, and commercial director, Ian Ayre, would remain in place.

“From what we have seen from afar, many of the people currently running Liverpool are doing a good job,” said Ganis. “There shouldn’t be an expectation there would be a mass upheaval if we submit and are approved.”

However a deal would see the departure of Tom Hicks and George Gillett. The pair are known to believe the club is worth £800m but Huang’s consortium will not stretch beyond repayment of the loans they have invested in the club, and would provide no value for their shareholdings.

“What is not one of our goals is the enrichment of the existing owners,” Ganis said. “If we submit a proposal and it is accepted, it would be focused on the future and not the past. “If anybody wants to [pay for the Hicks/Gillett shares], good luck. We know what we would be prepared to do. If somebody else wants to look at it in a different way, it’s their money. That would be their business, not ours.”

There will be little Hicks and Gillett can do about that. It is Broughton and his co-directors Ayre and Purslow who hold sway in the takeover battle surrounding the Anfield club. Although Hicks and Gillett remain on the board, under the terms of the latest refinancing agreement on Liverpool’s £237m loan with Royal Bank of Scotland, they cannot determine who takes over if Broughton, Ayre and Purslow vote en bloc in favour of any particular bidder.

Since their principal motivation is the future stability of the club, Ganis and Huang thus made great play of the potential for huge revenue growth if the club taps in to the Chinese market, which QSL would be uniquely well-placed to achieve.

LiverpoolMatt Scottguardian.co.uk

• Representative working on Spain striker’s future
• ‘We cannot guarantee he will stay,’ says agent

Fernando Torres says he is ‘happy’ with Roy Hodgson’s appointment as the new Liverpool manager but his agent last night hinted that the Spain striker could be playing for another Premier League club next season. Torres said yesterday that he had yet to speak with Hodgson ‘because I have a very important week ahead of me’ with a semi-final against Germany on Wednesday but his agent, José Antonio Martín, said: ‘It is very likely that Fernando Torres will stay in the Premier League but I cannot say whether that will be with Liverpool.’

He also told the Daily Mail: ‘We are working on his future but right now we cannot guarantee that he will stay with the English club.’

Chelsea and Manchester City were reported to be interested in signing the 26-year-old and Martín ruled out any move from Barcelona. ‘Barcelona have signed David Villa and now they want to invest the money they have in other players.’

Fernando TorresLiverpoolguardian.co.uk