Liverpool stalwart Jamie Carragher has denounced the club’s “ruthless” owners over broken promises and profiteering in the most scathing verdict on Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr from within Anfield.
In his autobiography due to be published yesterday, Carragher express sympathy with the Americans in saying manager Rafa Benitez publicly undermined them over transfers, but gives a largely critical assessment of a year of turmoil.
The 30-year-old hesitantly embraced the Americans when their takeover in March last year came with a pledge to invest in the team and replace Anfield stadium without burdening the Reds with debt.
But Carragher said he was riled by the owners apparently reneging on that pledge, becoming further disgruntled over infighting that triggered “the demise of those values which come under the definition ‘The Liverpool Way.’”
“For richer or poorer, we’d sold Liverpool to two ruthless businessmen who saw us as a moneymaking opportunity,” Carragher writes in Carra: My Autobiography.
“They didn’t buy Liverpool as an act of charity; they weren’t intent on throwing away all the millions they’d earned over 50 years ... They wanted to buy us because the planned stadium offered a chance to generate tons of cash and increase the value of the club,” Carragher wrote.
Carragher said the owners’ worst mistake was claiming no debt would be put on the club’s balance sheet when in fact the loans used to buy the five-time European champions created annual interest payments of around £30 million (US$55 million).
“Breaking this vow set the first alarm bells ringing, the embarrassing continual changing of the stadium plans was irritating too,” he wrote.
Millions of pounds were written off when existing plans to replace Anfield were ditched after the buyout so architects from Hicks’ native Texas could design a more spectacular stadium.
The subsequent global economic turmoil forced the new vision to be scaled down and the club announced last month that the 73,000-seat stadium will be delayed “in the short term.”
Carragher said he was surprised that Benitez defied standard workplace practice by going public to “slag off your boss.”
“I understood why the owners were unhappy with him too,” he wrote.
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