English Premier League side Liverpool inched closer to a sale yesterday when a High Court judge ruled against their unpopular US owners and backed the club’s board and its right to negotiate a deal.
The ownership battle engulfing one of the world’s most famous sporting institutions ended up in court after owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett tried to sack members of the board last week in a last ditch bid to keep control of the club.
The board were in the process of agreeing a £300 million (US$477 million) sale to New England Sports Ventures (NESV), the owner of the Boston Red Sox, ahead of a deadline to repay more than £200 million in debt on Friday.
PHOTO: AFP
Justice Floyd told a packed court that Hicks and Gillett had been guilty of the “the clearest possible breach” in terms of corporate governance rules and their bid to sack the board.
The judge spoke for about an hour in his summing-up.
The Liverpool board, including Gillett and Hicks, were set to meet later yesterday to consider its next move following the judgment, lawyers on all sides and the judge agreed.
Justice Floyd said the current owners had the right to attend, but not to veto any sale.
Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton told Sky Sports News after the hearing that he was “disappointed” that Gillett and Hicks had tried to breach the undertakings he said it had given him.
“When you go to court, you can never pre-judge the outcome,” he said. “The board has to be reconstituted and then re-sit this evening. I can’t pre-judge what the board is going to say.”
If the repayment date with major creditor the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is missed, the five-time European champions could be put into administration and docked nine points.
Lawyers for Hicks and Gillett admitted to a similarly packed London court room on Tuesday that the two men had breached their contract with RBS by trying to reshape the board, but said they had been forced to do so because those members were not considering alternative offers.
The two men argued they should be given more time to find a better offer.
A second, higher bid emerged on Tuesday when Singapore billionaire Peter Lim said he was ready to make an increased cash bid for the club of £320 million. Lawyers for Hicks and Gillett told the court a third group, Mill Financial, had also shown an interest.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier