Originally Posted by Rashid
I have done in the past few weeks, yes. And there are the odd forums like Est1892 where people are still clinging on to the G+H dream but the cast majority want them out with DIC in. I's say the most anti G+H are talklfc and TLW with YNWA 3rd. RAWK took a while but now most want these two out.
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Interesting - EST is still full of a lot of Dunk's little soldiers though isn't it? Was it RAWK that was very much pro-Parry over the summer when the stuff about limited transfer funds was starting to kick off?
Originally Posted by Brownie
Serious question:
All of the people who have voted for DIC - how do you know that their intentions would be any different to Hicks and Gillett?
I think we're in danger of falling for anyone else, because of the situation.
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I think there is an element of that. It's a bit like voting at a General Election in some ways - there is no known good choice (unless you've got full-on blind faith in one party), so you have to vote for what you think is the lesser of all the evils. Maybe one party sounds really promising, but by the time of the next election people are starting to have doubts, especially over the party or leader that was in power.
If both DIC and GILL-HICK had put offers in last year, at the same time, and you'd been given the casting vote to decide who gets it, you'd have been voting based on a number of different things. Some of it has evidence to back it up - past ventures, financial information etc. But a lot of it would be based on what they told you about themselves and their intentions.
The trouble is, both parties could promise they fully intended to back Rafa with loads of money, keep you in your job regardless of your past or future performance, not to change the club's name to the Liverpool Rodeos and so on, but most of that would only be verbally agreed.
Can we get worse than Gillett and Hicks? Yes, course we can. But is that likely? Not sure.
Did Gillett and Hicks plan to lie to us and rip us off? Or did they just not realise what they'd taken on? Five minutes' due diligence suggests the latter.
DIC were going to get the club for less money first of all. Moores would still have been a very rich man, but not quite as rich. The cost of paying back the outlay for the club and stadium would have been lower under DIC, because they'd almost certainly either get a better interest rate or would use their own money anyway. The Parrybowl wasn't loved by anyone, but we'd all resigned ourselves to it pretty much - and there's still no saying they wouldn't have revisited it themselves anyway.
All in all, I don't for one minute think DIC would have given us what Gillett and Hicks made us think
they were giving us. But I think they'd have been better for us than Gillett and Hicks have turned out to be.
Another one year delay so far on the stadium since they came along means whoever's in charge of the team for the next few years will have to wait even longer to benefit from the increased stadium revenue, which was the only reason for a takeover in the first place.
I don't know now how good a DIC takeover would be. They'd have to pay more to buy us, unless the Americans want to take a loss or Moores and the other shareholders pay back what they got for their shares. But I really can't see them being worse than this pair.
If the owners had told us, from the off, that they would be investing in the team the way they did rather than the way they implied then I think most of our problems would be reduced.
Why bother rushing plans through without checking the cost of building?
Why promise to put their own cash into transfers then backtrack?
Why promise not to put debt on the club then backtrack?
They didn't even tell Rafa for ages how much he'd really have to spend. They let him think he was getting extra money, then left him in the lurch without a clue how much he could have. And without even a clue of when he might find out how much he's got.
I think we'd all prefer to find out the bad news when it happens, not have it sugar-coated and kept from us for weeks on end, only to find it was as we'd suspected. If they'd told Rafa how much he really had to spend after Athens, and if they'd said that from the off, we'd have a totally different environment at the club. Instead we've got an environment of mistrust throughout.
I think DIC would want to avoid that. What would be the point?
