Gillett and Hicks interview

[Vincent Vega]

Dodgy politics and the desire for an even bigger slice of TV money are what stand out. Interesting enough read, but I'd like them to stay in the background from now on (don't think it'll happen though because they seem to enjoy the attention).

 

Anyone reckon Abramovich avoids food and drink in case it's laced with polonium-210?

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=476114&in_page_id=1779

 

Gillett and Hicks buy into Anfield romance

 

The conversation moves from English football to American politics and the reputation Tom Hicks has for putting presidents in the White House.

 

'I'm working hard for him,' Hicks says of Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a Republican candidate who can count the part-owner of Liverpool as a member of his political action committee. 'But I never worked hard for him,' he then says of the current occupant of the Oval Office. 'I just made him rich.'

 

Hicks smiles and the man sitting beside him in a rather more modest office at Anfield lets out a huge guffaw. George W Bush? He owes Hicks big time, George Gillett acknowledges.

 

Bush got rich when Hicks bought the Texas Rangers baseball team from a consortium that, in 1998, was headed by the 43rd President of the United States. Not only that, he provided Bush with major financial support in his climb up the political ladder.

 

The subject is raised only because of the influence they might enjoy now they have seats at club football's top table.

 

Hicks and Gillett, as the American owners of the five-times European champions, have friends in seriously high places, are worth billions, have a vast wealth of experience in owning major sports franchises and also have a background in television and broadcasting. In short, they are the kind of men who might make the game's administrators nervous when it comes to talk of breakaway leagues and independent television deals.

 

TV money, and what they consider a potential area of huge financial growth, is partly what attracted them to Liverpool in the first place.

 

'When we played the Champions League Final in Athens I think they estimated the global television audience at around 400million,' says Hicks. 'The growth of international television around the sport, particularly around the Premier League and what here in England is the most important league in the world, is exciting. If you are in the business like we have been, you can see that very quickly. The Premier League has the best growth opportunities in global terms in sport.'

 

'Content is huge,' adds Gillett. 'The delivery system is becoming less important. Now it's content.'

 

But do they pursue those growth opportunities as a collective? Do they see the Premier League clubs continuing to act as one? 'That's an interesting question and one we are sorting out,' says Gillett.

 

'We are discovering the fan base of Liverpool is much more global than we realised. Probably the second biggest in the world.

 

'We are not sure if the Premiership plays collectively that well. On the other hand, the four top clubs definitely do. We are trying to sort that out. I don't know that we know the answer yet. But we see China, India, some of the emerging nations that are doing well economically, as amazing opportunities.'

 

Aware that it might all sound too business-like and a little unromantic for the owners of a football club that is so much about romance, Gillett appears keen to present their more sensitive side.

 

The side that wants to stand with the fans on the Kop; that invited supporters' groups to have their say before agreeing on a design for Liverpool's futuristic new stadium.

 

'I think I speak for Tom as well when I say there are two parts to each of us,' he says. 'The head can tell you the logical parts, but the heart is really why we are here. Because no matter how good the numbers are, this is a long way from home. And if we didn't feel it in the heart we wouldn't be here. The interest in sport has to be in the heart.

 

'This is a decent business but not a great business. If we simply focused on the business there are other opportunities that we both have that, frankly, would be better. So if it didn't incorporate the heart in our emotion, I don't think we'd do it.'

 

Gillett is charm personified. Friendly, warm, genuine. When he first appeared in the reception area of Anfield's office complex, he apologised for being late and then disappeared down the corridor to 'find Tom'. And when he then returned with Tom, he joined his business partner in jokingly trying to intimidate their interviewer.

 

'Is this you?' asks Hicks as he turns to the back pages of a copy of the Daily Mail. 'Did you write the headline as well? What does it say here, “Bonehead!”?

 

Fortunately not, even if 'Bonehead' does accompany a report on Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo and the red card he received at Portsmouth. A report Hicks tries to read surreptitiously whenever Gillett is in full flow.

 

Hicks says exactly what he thinks in his throaty Texan drawl, as he demonstrates when asked for his opinion on David Beckham's chances of putting 'soccer' on the U.S. map.

 

But Gillett, who at 68 is seven years older than Hicks, is the more garrulous one. The one who likes to mingle. The one who cannot relate to the reclusive nature of the Glazer family at Old Trafford. 'Don't even go there,' he says when I dare to compare them.

 

When Gillett read about a father of four who complained he could not afford to take his family to see Gillett's Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team, he invited them to watch a game in his private box. When he bought the Vail ski resort in Colorado he would greet skiers as they came off the chairlifts.

 

'I'm not very tall but I'm pretty strong and about 10 years ago I was on the mountain when I saw this great big guy who had simply frozen on the slopes,' says Gillett with a chuckle.

 

'He was petrified. He just could not get down. So I used my radio to call the rescue guys to see if they could get a snowmobile to get him off the mountain. But they were all busy. So I looked at this guy, he must have weighed 230lb, and I told him to climb on to my back with his skis either side of me and I skied him off the mountain. I took him directly to ski school and bought him a five-day ski school pass and then I walked away.

 

'What I didn't realise was this guy was the editor of People Magazine and he asked the guys in ski school who had rescued him. Two weeks later and there's a big story about it in the magazine.'

 

'That's George,' says Hicks, shaking his head. 'He was with me in Dallas not so long ago and I wanted to talk about Liverpool, but he just kept disappearing to talk to fans.'

 

Liverpool's fans have impressed them enormously. 'I got in trouble for saying they were the best in the world,' says Hicks. 'Our baseball fans back home read it and started asking if I thought they were better than them. All I say now is they're very different. Very special.'

 

Gillett said last season's Champions League semi-final against Chelsea was 'like watching a game on steroids', so loud were the supporters. 'I'd never seen anything like it,' he says. 'The noise and the energy. Just amazing.'

 

It was the sound of the Kop that inspired the design for the stunning new stadium that will open in 2010 with a capacity of 61,000. It will then be extended to seat more than 70,000.

 

'The architects came to the Barcelona match and they got it right away,' says Hicks. 'Because that night the fans were so loud and they knew they had to keep the Kop. They said “we get it”. The Kop is the symphony stage and it needs to play to the rest of the hall.'

 

Gillett adds: 'The stadium was a critical element in our decision to come here. It's a necessity.

 

'We are in a sport without a salary cap. And if you are going to remain competitive, and Liverpool's fans deserve to have a club that remains competitive, we have to have a larger stadium. We don't have the economics of London so we have to have size.'

 

As both men agree, a new, improved Kop needs something in return. A winning team. 'We want what the fans want,' says Gillett.

 

'I can't go into any of the three stadiums I own without thinking how much people are paying to be there,' adds Hicks. 'We want to give them value for money. We want to win the Premiership. 'Before we arrived we were a team that could do well in Europe but not in the Premiership. We now have the depth to do that. We have brought in the players Rafa (Benitez) identified.'

 

They might have only been here since March, and they might have appointed Gillett's son Foster to work alongside chief executive Rick Parry in running the club day to day, but they talk with great knowledge. Hicks gets excited about 'Torres and Babel'. Gillett mentions talent in the academy.

 

'That's the unwritten story,' says Gillett. 'We have a number of brilliant young players who are going to be the future of this club.

 

'Rafa believes in youth and we share that philosophy. That's why Tom and I are so comfortable with him. He's a very responsible man. He's not a slash and burner. He said we needed four or five new players to be competitive and we went out and got them.'

 

'A great example of what not to do is the New York Yankees,' adds Hicks. 'A guy (owner George Steinbrenner) tried to win in the short term by spending all this money on ageing stars. And they didn't win. They used to win when they had young, up-and-coming stars. You have to have a balance.'

 

While Hicks says they have no intention of spending as extravagantly as Roman Abramovich, Gillett reveals a close bond with the side they meet at Anfield tomorrow.

 

'I went to the Community Shield in 2006,' says Gillett.

 

'But the Liverpool people were so nervous about me being spotted with them, I ended up getting tickets off Peter Kenyon (the Chelsea chief executive) and sitting in the Chelsea end. Foster and I nearly got beaten up when we cheered a Liverpool goal!'

 

So Kenyon knew of their interest in buying Liverpool? 'Oh yeah,' says Gillett. 'We know Peter.'

 

Gillett has only ever met Abramovich once, and notes how he 'never eats or drinks anything' when he visits rival clubs, but he says he found the Russian charming.

 

'The American invasion of the Premiership is a misnomer,' says Gillett. 'Seven foreign groups have come into the Premiership and only three of them are American, and all three have been involved in sports before.

 

'It's been presented as some kind of capitalist invasion, but I don't think that is an accurate representation at all. We are different to the Glazers and the Glazers are different to the Lerners, but we love sports.'

 

Most Americans do but will the Americans ever take to soccer?

 

'It's getting better,' says Hicks. 'But I don't think Beckham will make … he's doing what they hoped he would do. Getting a lot of newspaper attention.'

 

Gillett adds: 'There's a lot of competition already established.' 'And,' says Hicks, 'the new TV contracts will provide a lot of Premier League games in the U.S, across three channels.'

 

Sounds like it would be easier to get Beckham in the White House.

[Kopite]

It's no surprise they're in it for the money mate. For far too long the commercial opportunities our "brand" should generate have been neglected (not having kits/clothing in post-Istanbul for example).

 

There is the p*ss-poor ticketing arrangements.

 

Sponsors dictating terms to us (like Carlsberg) and messing the club around.

 

I think they came over really well in that interview. Tom's the hard-nosed businessman whilst George (oh God Dave is going to shoot me for this) comes over as more of the romantic (yes I know I sound like the luvvie).

[Bourbon]

It also struck me that the abstinence thing bourne of sercurity paranoia rather than his being aloof.

 

Says a lot about his reputation and his own admittance of such, that he won't even risk eating and drinking in executively-catered, bespoke settings.

[Captain]

I think they both came over well in that piece. Nice to see an explanation to the degree of business they expect from us.

[Sangria]

Anyone reckon Abramovich avoids food and drink in case it's laced with polonium-210?

 

Yes me one hundred percent on the ball. Also I have reservations about anyone who backs bush but I always like to keep the two apart, especially when it suits.

 

The Stadium is growing on me big time. I am in the do not want to move camp, season ticket or no season ticket but if we have to, it might as well be something special and that looks special alright.

[Hermes]

It's no surprise they're in it for the money mate. For far too long the commercial opportunities our "brand" should generate have been neglected (not having kits/clothing in post-Istanbul for example).

 

There is the p*ss-poor ticketing arrangements.

 

Sponsors dictating terms to us (like Carlsberg) and messing the club around.

 

 

Very true, 30 years wasted. If their know how was to generate £50m extra a season, who cares if they cream off 50% of that for themselves?

[Big Lee]

Very true, 30 years wasted. If their know how was to generate £50m extra a season, who cares if they cream off 50% of that for themselves?

 

We should have exploited every money making opportunity we could just look at the mancs.