Liverpool

[Matevž]

Samo kitajcev je še manjkalo v fuzbalu ja, kot da ni že dovolj jenkijev in ostalih seronj...

[The_Milkman]

HAHAHAHAA

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing and Justine Lau in Hong Kong

Published: August 5 2010 14:21 | Last updated: August 5 2010 14:21

Chinese fans may lament the low calibre of their domestic men’s football teams, but that does not mean the Chinese government would consider buying debt-laden Liverpool Football Club.

A spokesperson for China Investment Corp, the country’s main sovereign wealth fund, told the Financial Times on Thursday they had never heard of a plan to buy Liverpool or of Kenneth Huang, the man widely reported to be fronting a Chinese bid to buy the English Premier League club.



UK media have reported that Mr Huang, owner of a small sports marketing company with an office in Beijing, is bidding for the club with backing from CIC.

But Mr Huang himself issued a statement on Wednesday night saying that although he has registered interest in investing in Liverpool, he has not made a formal bid.

“There has been much speculation and commentary from a wide array of people, many of whom have little knowledge of the facts,” Mr Huang said.

A person who has worked closely with CIC said there was “no way” the fund would get involved in such a high-profile, symbolic and potentially risky deal.

“Next they’ll say CIC is going to buy Playboy,” this person said.

A person close to Mr Huang told the Financial Times on Monday that his bid was backed by a “sovereign wealth fund from the Far East” but declined to name the fund.

There had been no suggestion internally at Liverpool that CIC was involved in Mr Huang’s bid, another person close to the situation said.

Portrayed in the UK press as a Chinese billionaire tycoon, Mr Huang runs QSL Sports Limited, a sports marketing company that is trying to develop a new basketball league in China and promote Little League (youth) baseball in a country where most people know nothing about the sport.

QSL’s website says the company is based out of Hong Kong and located at a prestigious address. However, when the Financial Times visited the office there was no sign of QSL and the management company of the building said no company by that name rented an office there.

A person who answered the phone at QSL in Hong Kong at first said the company was still at the address listed on the website, but when told that the management company of the building had denied this, then said the company had moved and its new address was a secret.

At QSL’s small office in central Beijing, company employees were still unpacking boxes having recently moved from a much smaller office. A staff member said the company employed around 15 people in Beijing but he had not heard about a plan to buy Liverpool FC.

After repeated questions to Mr Huang’s spokeswoman, the office addresses were removed from QSL’s website on Thursday afternoon.

An official biography of Mr Huang says he is an investor in a Chinese basketball team and in 1988 became the first Chinese college graduate from mainland China to work at the New York Stock Exchange, where he “started his career in public relations”.

He also founded an investment company called Rocket Capital with Leslie Alexander, owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team, and has made a number of investments in Chinese companies. Mr Huang’s spokeswoman could not confirm whether he was still involved with Rocket Capital.

[The_Milkman]

Yahya Kirdi. Fantasy island, without the planes.
Posted on August 7th, 2010 by Jim Boardman

Gillett and Hicks smile with KirdiAlthough a number of names have been put forward as frontmen for potential bids for Liverpool Football Club only a couple of them have actually gone on the record to admit any involvement. The most assertive in declaring his interest isn’t Kenny Huang of what is now known as “the Chinese bid” but Yayha Kirdi of what is now known as “the Joke bid”.

Of course it’s not being played out as a joke by Mr Kirdi or his advisors, but it’s becoming more of one by the day.

What he hasn’t said is who specifically it is he’s working for, other than some unnamed and therefore mysterious Canadian and Middle Eastern investors. This of course means there’s a fair bit of speculation about who they might be, at least from those who are giving him the benefit of the doubt that he actually has got some backers.

Sharja
One name put forward is that of Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasim. He’s the 71-year-old ruler of Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, and has been linked with a move for the club before.

What isn’t clear is where this link between Sharjah’s ruler and Yahya Kirdi has actually come from, given that he is keeping quite tight-lipped about his backers. George, on one of his Saudi Arabian juants for the camerasIt seems most likely that this link has been offered by a certain George Gillett. Anfield Road reported last week that Gillett had apparently been to RBS to tell them he had a serious bidder lined up in what seemed an attempt to stall the process that Martin Broughton is running to sell the club. That is the process the owners agreed with RBS as a condition of getting a further extension to the finance.

There’s always a possibility that this link has come from adding a few clues together to come up with an answer.

Those clues could have come from claims back in April when Kirdi’s name was first publicly linked with the club. He was described as a former international footballer for Syria and it was also claimed in some reports that he’d played and managed at Al-Ittahid Kalba, a club from the UAE state of Sharja. It’s the kind of claim that can add credibility to the idea of him being a trusted contact of some wealthy backers from the Middle East and it also gives out an impression that he’s got a strong background in the game.

But reports this week have thrown that particular bit of credibility out of the window. It seems he didn’t play for that particular Al-Ittahid club after all. The term “Al-Ittahid” means “The Union” and is used in a similar way to how the term “United” is used with British clubs. There are a number of teams called Al-Ittahid around the world, and that includes Syria.

Former footballer
Kirdi’s former club was actually Al-Ittahid Aleppo, a club from the city of his 1966 birth. He also played for Oruba Club from the same city. All this was back in the 1980s, and as for his international career, it now transpires that he played for “the national youth team” rather than the senior squad. Added to the question marks over his links to the wealth of the UAE are doubts that his experience in the game isn’t quite what it was built up to be in those earlier links with a takeover of Liverpool FC.

Searching for information on Mr Kirdi earlier this week, after excluding any link to Liverpool FC, threw up blank after blank. But he was eventually interviewed by the Canadian media from what turns out is his current hometown of Laval, a city in the Montreal area of Quebec, Canada.

The Canadian Press confirmed Kirdi was Syrian-born and said that he’d arrived in Canada eight years ago, in 2002. He told them his ideas on the club and the much-needed new stadium: “I want to build Liverpool. I have a new plan which I have given George Gillett. This one is not only a stadium but also a stadium and hotel, five star, and shopping centre.”

Straight away any hope he had of being seen as a credible option took a bashing. Finance is going to be hard to come by for a new stadium, but at least there’s planning permission for one. And to make it more viable there needs to be some investment in the local transport infrastructure because without it the city council will not allow a capacity of more than 60,000. The plans first shown to the world by Hicks and Gillett three years ago, for a stadium supposed to open this month, were for a capacity as high 76,000 by the time it opened. The owners stated that they hoped to have overcome those local infrastructure problems by the time the build was complete.

Getting planning permission for a five-star hotel might be possible, but getting the go-ahead for another shopping centre so close to the city centre and the new Liverpool One project seems a bit of a stretch. And that’s before we get onto the question of how much money all this is going to take.

Fan power
But that was nothing to the distance from reality of another part of Mr Kirdi’s “plan”. Although the reports didn’t actually quote him on it, he’d clearly told the reporter that “the facility would also include a solarium to generate solar power, which would be provided to Liverpudlians.”

In a part of the country where it has certainly rained every day since St Swithin’s day that doesn’t exactly sound a viable plan – and that’s before we get clarification of how a sunroom will generate solar power to be provided to Liverpudlians, or whether that solar power will have to be shared with Evertonians.

On Wednesday Kirdi had claimed his vague group of investors were in “advanced negotiations” with Hicks and Gillett (notably not Martin Broughton, the club, Barcap or RBS) and that “agreement has been reached on all major terms including the purchase price, repayment of the existing bank debt from RBS and Wells Fargo and financing of a new stadium in Liverpool’s Stanley Park. A formal purchase agreement between the parties is in the final stage of negotiation.”

Something jumped out of that statement straight away. Wells Fargo now encompasses Wachovia, one of the banks used by the owners to refinance their debts related to the club in 2008, but the club’s last accounts said that finance commitments with Wachovia/Wells Fargo had now been settled. It’s always possible that Wells Fargo do have an involvement in the club in some way, but it’s not clear exactly what. Perhaps this is a sign of how closely Mr Kirdi and his advisors have looked at the club’s finances and how serious they are about the idea of owning Liverpool Football Club.

AIG and FIFA
There were also claims in this week’s reports that “he has worked as a senior consultant with AIG in the Middle East”. We contacted AIG this afternoon to see if they have any record of this and will report back if we hear any more. It’s not clear when he did this work for them, if he indeed did.

Another of the claims that seem part of an aim to give Mr Kirdi some credibility was that Kirdi is “still active in soccer as a coach and has many contacts through his playing days and work with FIFA.” We’ve also contacted FIFA this afternoon to see if he is known to them in any capacity.

The planes, boss
6 CRJ1000 passenger jetsPerhaps the biggest effort made to show him as a man of means, or a man acting for other men of means, was that he had been “recently negotiating to buy six CRJ1000 aircraft from Bombardier.” Elsewhere a claim had been put out that he’d actually put pen to paper on those deals and with the aircraft in question – passenger jets made by Canadian company Bombardier – costing around £27m each this was clearly a big deal he’d done. Yet there was no mention on the Bombardier company website for what would be £162m worth of jet plane, in his or anyone else’s name, in the time frame that had been claimed.

We contacted Bombardier to ask if they could confirm the order and explain why it was missing from their website. Isabelle Rondeau, Bombardier’s Director of Communications, told Anfield Road that if the order had been made it would have been on their website.

We contacted Mr Kirdi’s representatives to ask about this, they didn’t respond to that particular question.

One UK newspaper made a worrying suggestion about where Kirdi’s money could come from. The Daily Mirror reported that Kirdi was “backed by Montreal group Gameday LMC and, apparently, Syrian businessman Rami Makhiouf.”

Cellphones
Rami Makhlouf was described in a 2005 BBC report as “one of the most powerful businessmen in Syria”. He runs the country’s mobile phone network, SyriaTel and “with friends at the highest level in government, Mr Makhlouf, who just happens to be a cousin of the president, is a very powerful man. It is said that no foreign companies can do business in Syria without his consent.”

In 2008 he became the subject of sanctions from the US government. Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said that he had “used intimidation and his close ties to the Asad regime to obtain improper business advantages at the expense of ordinary Syrians”. The order saw any of his assets under US jurisdiction frozen and it also forbids US people or entities from doing business with him.

Kirdi’s representative in Canada, Dan Diamond, told Anfield Road: “I don’t know the name Makhiouf”.

However Mr Diamond was also unaware of major aspects of Kirdi’s relatively recent business history, suggesting that he’d not been told the full story about Kirdi’s background. And that background suggests Mr Kirdi is a long way away from being an associate of anyone with the kind of money required to win the battle to take Liverpool Football Club over, however that money was raised.

Heart
Mr Kirdi had claimed this week that he was well-travelled, suggesting he’d flown the world before deciding to settle in Canada: “I’ve visited all the world, believe me.” Anywhere specific? “North, South, Africa, Europe, the United States, Middle East,” he revealed. Then he found home: “I like Canada in general and Quebec especially. When my airplane arrived at the Montreal airport, I opened my heart because this is my country.”

And, it seems, shortly after opening his heart he opened a shop. A public records site in Quebec contains details of Mr Kirdi’s business activities since his arrival in Canada. It shows quite clearly the businesses that he had until 2008, after which there is no record of him being in business.

Shops
In 2002, which is of course the year of his arrival in Canada (according to this week’s reports) he began a business by the name of “Kirdi Pour Vetements” (presumably a clothes store) and another by the name of “Rasoya” (no clues as to what that might actually have been). Both of these businesses are recorded as having ceased trading in December 2006.

Where Yahya did pizzaIn 2004 he began a business called “Pizza Kirdi” and as the name suggests that was a pizza outlet. That business came to a close in April 2006, but it wouldn’t be the last time Mr Kirdi was involved in the pizza business. In December 2006 the records show that he began an enterprise called “Pizza Madona”, and this ran until September 2008. It’s now under new ownership with the name of “Pizza da Tony”.

He also had a business called “Dépanneur Monaco” for 10 months in 2006, which was what in the UK might be called an off-licence.

Assuming that Mr Diamond would have been informed of his client’s background, Anfield Road asked for an explanation of how someone with business credentials seeming to consist of owning a couple of pizza stores was supposed to be seen as part of a credible approach for Liverpool FC. We wanted to know why we should feel confident that Yahya Kirdi could bring the good times back.

Facts
Mr Diamond said: “Let’s deal with facts. Our group’s interest preceded the hiring of Martin [Broughton] and BarCap. We were one of a number of parties who had expressed interest who the current owners held out of the Broughton/BarCap search for new buyers. The owners excluded the parties on this list from BarCap’s territory. So we were ‘grandfathered’ and were never directed to do anything other than negotiate with the owners. That said, we hope to win the support of the LFC Board based on the strength of our bid.

“Kirdi and his backers are football men with experience as team owners at a much smaller scale. They recognize LFC as one of the world’s most important clubs. Their bid is based on the perceived value of an LFC with solid management, money to be active in the transfer market and an appropriate modern stadium. And they have the money to buy the club, clear its debt, hire top management and acquire quality players and get that stadium built. And they’ll do this without rhetoric or promises of instant success. They understand ‘The Liverpool Way.’

Pizza
“Kirdi has worked on behalf of this investor group for more than ten years but has never been involved in a high profile project like LFC. The pizza story is nonsense. Funny and slightly insulting, but nonsense.”

“Corner shop”
So perhaps Mr Diamond didn’t know about the pizzas. We sent him the proof, he replied saying it was, “frankly, news to me.”

Despite being caught off guard Mr Diamond was still good enough to respond in some detail. “Owning a depanneur (which is a corner shop that can sell beer and wine) and/or a pizza restaurant are travelled paths for entrepreneurial immigrants to Canada (and I suspect the U.K.) from the around the world who come with some cash, little language skills and a desire to create paying work for members of their family, Mr. Kirdi has made local investments while looking for bigger opportunities for his overseas investors.”

Yahya Kirdi – credible or not?
Whatever Mr Kirdi claims to be, it really doesn’t match up to what it seems he is in reality.

The solar-powered solarium is funny, the downgrading of his football experience is only a minor concern. He hasn’t ordered those six planes and that immediately puts a huge question mark over his integrity. His business empire was still impressive enough on an individual basis but it’s certainly not something that would put him in contention to take over one of the corporate boxes let alone the whole club. Only two names have been suggested as his potential backers – one of them is the ruler of an emirate he has absolutely no discernible link to and the other is someone that George Gillett and Tom Hicks are legally unable to do business with.

Whatever the truth turns out to be about the other possible candidates for the ownership of Liverpool Football Club, Mr Kirdi clearly isn’t a credible candidate.

Edit:

Po novem nad Melwoodom..

[ElDiego]

A je razlog, da je Pepe vprašljiv za jutri v tem, da je tako pozno prišel s SP-ja? Sicer pa je podpisal tudi Poulsen, ki ga je Hodgson treniral že na Danskem, kar verjetno pomeni - čeprav Roy to zanima - da bo Masch odšel. Verjetno le še čaka na pravo ponudbo, ki je zaenkrat ni.

[The_Milkman]

Jadni smo s tem Poulsenom...

Pepe ima lažjo poškodbo ramena. Baje bo/je nared

[BOCo]

[Matevž]

P.s.: Danes zadnja tekma Mascha?

[ElDiego]

In zakaj kurac se niso pritožli za Colea? Tisto ni blo za direktnega rdečega ...

[The_Milkman]

@ Boco: huda!

P.s.: Danes zadnja tekma Mascha?

Upam, da še zdaleč ne. Čeprav ne verjamem, da bo ostal je včeraj pokazal kaka igračina je. Kera predstava Jebiga naj odjebe uno babo pa da je mir, al pa naj da enmu iz ekipe en krog z njo. Bomo vidli Benitez je dobil porcijo cekinov za Ballotelija ampak pod 30 se sploh nihče nebi smel pogovarjat..... S Škrtelom sta bila odlična... škoda, da se je Pepe spomnil delat neumnost...


Bi pa še dodal Carragherju in odličnemu intervjuju po tekmi, reporter ga je hotel napeljat na malce udrihanja po Benitezu pa ga je odlično skenslal....


http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528, ... 83,00.html who the fuck? Nimam nič proti Royu (ok za trenerja ga nisem hotel) ampak neki kvazi golmani in Youngi mi pa res niso jasni...če so Beniteza jebal kako in kaj kupuje....jih on v najhujšem deliriju nebi pogledal.
Sta pa na voljo tako Bellamy kot Ireland...po prihodu Poulsna je kot kaže sredina zafilana, Norcu pa bi takoj ponudil roko......kdo bi si kadarkoli mislil, da bo LFC primoran kupovati Cityeve rejecte...

[tench]

Bellamy je šel raje v Cardiff. Ziher je ziher. Pri Liverpoolu pač tega ni....

[The_Milkman]

Hahahaha.....Esmeralda....

Chinese on the verge of walking out on Liverpool takeover deal

Tony Evans, Football Editor, Helen Power, Business Correspondent

Exclusive

The Liverpool takeover saga was plunged into crisis last night when Kenny Huang delivered a take-it-or-leave it message to Martin Broughton.

Huang, the Hong Kong-based businessman, has grown frustrated by what he perceives as delaying tactics by the Liverpool chairman and will walk away unless the Chinese bid is accepted.

Despite Liverpool’s assertions that there are other bidders, Huang believes that his offer is the only viable one on the table. Senior members of the hierarchy at Liverpool have also expressed concern at the pace of the sales process.

After the Chinese interest was revealed in these pages two weeks ago, Broughton said that he expected the club to be sold by the end of last week. However, the deadline passed with Anfield sources claiming that there were still as many as five bids. Huang — who has China Investment Corporation, one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds, among his backers — believes that this is a ploy to push up the price.

Liverpool have suggested that Huang has not offered proof of funds but The Times understands that the Chinese bid has supplied all the necessary documentation required by the memorandum of sale, a legal framework for potential buyers.

A source close to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) — which is owed £237 million by Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, Liverpool’s owners — said last night that Huang was “there or thereabouts” on providing proof of funding to Barclays Capital, the investment bank brokering the deal. The Chinese offer would make the club debt-free and also bring large-scale investment as part of a total outlay of about £800 million.

Huang is eager to complete the deal before the transfer window closes. The Chinese are concerned that without investment in the squad Liverpool could finish outside the top four this season and want to be in place to provide funds for Roy Hodgson, the manager, as quickly as possible.

Huang has a transfer war chest and has put aside cash to build a new stadium. The Chinese will not dip into these budgets to increase their offer and benefit Hicks and Gillett at the expense of investment in Anfield.

Huang’s stance will heap pressure on Broughton. The chairman of British Airways was brought into the club in April to oversee the sale. The 63-year-old arrived at Anfield with impeccable credentials in the City. However, Broughton has struggled to fulfil this role and is in danger of damaging his reputation.

RBS believes that Huang has the most credible bid and played down the notion of five potential buyers. Sources close to the bank said it was possible that GameDay, the Montreal-based group behind Yahya Kirdi, the Syrian businessman, may become a serious contender if it can show proof of funds.

Rhône Capital, the American private equity group, is still in discussions with Barclays Capital but has not been able to raise sufficient funds to bid.

It has also emerged that RBS could, if necessary, seize control of Liverpool without putting the club into administration, a move that would result in an automatic nine-point deduction by the Premier League.

The bank has been charging Hicks and Gillett £2.5 million a week in penalty fees and could threaten to pursue the Americans for the money if they fail to hand over the keys to Liverpool as part of a debt-for-equity swap.

Other options would include removing Hicks and Gillett from the club’s board.

[The_Milkman]

O shit....

[tench]

Swedish House Mafia...

[The_Milkman]

Hahaha Winter in nova podoknica Ceciliji

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... s-not.html






http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/2010082 ... none.html/

http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/2010082 ... rice.html/

Priporočeno branje !!

[tench]

Henry Winter je moja kruha...



Poulsen knows best. V klubu je preživel natanko 37 ur in 12 minut. Celo večnost, bi se reklo...