Rick Parry: Liverpool fan and great survivor of football administration

Parry, though, is one of the great survivors of sports administration, particularly football, and he was never likely to easily walk away from a club he has supported all his life.Born and raised on Merseyside, Parry studied at the University of Liverpool during the 1970s when Liverpool were establishing themselves as the preeminent force in European football before training as an accountant and moving into management consultancy in the 1980s.His first major involvement in sports came during the 1980s, when he helped prepare Manchester's failed bid for the 1992 Olympics, while he was also a director of the bid in 1996.Parry, though, came to real prominence when consultancy work on initial plans to found the Premier League led to him becoming the league's first chief executive back in 1992.It was a time of revolution in English football and the start of an era that has seen the Premier League rise and rise to become the richest and most successful domestic football competition in the world.Parry oversaw the initial development of the Premier League and, during his last year, he also brokered the biggest ever television deal in the history of UK sport, with BSkyB and the BBC offering a package in excess of £700m for broadcasting rights.He was appointed Liverpool chief executive in 1998 by the former chairman David Moores, but has endured mixed success at Anfield, culminating in strained relationships with both Hicks and Benitez. Hicks was critical of the revenue generating gap between Liverpool and Manchester United and felt the new stadium was long overdue.He publicly called for Parry's resignation last April, describing the chief executive's time at Liverpool as "a disaster", while Benitez regularly hinted at frustration over delays in signing players.This particularly came to a head during the summer over Gareth Barry, though Parry felt that he was simply following the orders of Hicks and Gillett in not matching Aston Villa's asking price.Parry has considered leaving Anfield once already this season when he was sounded out about the chief executive's position at England's 2018 World Cup bid.He turned that down, preferring to remain at Liverpool and fight his corner, but with Hicks and Benitez so critical of his abilities he was always on borrowed time. The greatest irony is the part that Parry played in bringing both men to the club.

Source: Telegraph