Source: PA
Broughton expects sale to go through
Liverpool remain confident of success in their High Court showdown with their American owners despite Tom Hicks denying he ceded control of the club to chairman Martin Broughton.
The boardroom battle between the England-based members of Broughton, managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre on the one side and Hicks and George Gillett on the other revolves around who has the controlling authority.
Hicks believes the deal to sell the club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV) for £300million is invalid as, minutes before the meeting to discuss the offer on Tuesday, he changed the make-up of the board - removing Purslow and Ayre and replacing them with his son Mack and Lori McCutcheon, who works for Hicks Holdings.
However, Broughton yesterday (Wednesday) said Hicks had "flagrantly abused" undertakings, given to major creditors Royal Bank of Scotland when the sale process began, which outlined Broughton as the only man with the ability to change the composition of the board. As a result he refused to accept the changes and progressed the board meeting with neither owner willing to participate and that resulted in the agreed sale to NESV. But Hicks is determined to fight to the end and the dispute will be resolved in the High Court early next week, Press Association Sport understands, and not Friday as has been suggested.
"There were no such undertakings given to Broughton, the board has been legally reconstituted, and the new board does not approve of this proposed transaction," Hicks' New York-based spokesman Mark Semer told Bloomberg News.
Broughton said the Americans were well aware of his role in the sale process when the club was first put on the market. "When I took the role it was because George and Tom recognised the only way to move forward was to sell the entire club," he said. "They said if they sold the club they wouldn't have credibility, so I was to add credibility to the process." The ownership of the club is likely to be decided one way or another by a week on Friday as that is the date for repayment of the £237million RBS loan.
