The RBS plan kicks off tomorrow night please Join. if you havent already.

[Section_31]

The fact the mancs are being asked to contribute £25 to a buyout scheme of their own club was on 'breaking news' on Sky last night shows how much needs to be done to get the message out. We've had a scheme similar to that for what, well over a year now - nearly two?

 

It's not how many members your movement has got, it's where they're placed and how powerful and influential they are. The mancs have obviously got a lot of clout in the city and on fleet street.

[Dan Vito Corleone]

I think you're spot on with that Section.

[bonesman]

I'll post this on the official site in the free forum if thats ok, its a shambles over there at the mo, we need something to galvanise the fans, unite for the cause..

 

yanks out now!

[Joe Le Taxi]

I've had an evil thought. What about targetting MP's in the midst of an election campain? Especially marginals. The last thing they'll need is their email addresses being clogged up if they're having to field emails from the press. As RBS is now partially government owned they can hardly say it's none of their business because no matter who gets in they'll be responsible for overseeing the public investment.

 

Mate, i've had email contact and even sent letters to my MP's and they all sent it forward to the Sports Minister and his office. From what I recall, the government set up a special office to deal with the banks they co-own.

 

Like the way you think. Leave this one with me.

 

Shit just got serious....Any developments on this?

 

I'll post this on the official site in the free forum if thats ok, its a shambles over there at the mo, we need something to galvanise the fans, unite for the cause..

 

yanks out now!

 

Haha the Offal forum will not care. They ban everyone who speaks out now.

 

I also read the name Matt Scott and what he was supposedly doing, did he end up doing what he said? I've had email contact with him before over different issues I was asked to do for a friend and I thought he was a Manc.

[bonesman]

Haha the Offal forum will not care. They ban everyone who speaks out now.

 

all due respect mate but you dont what you're talking about, when was the last time you were over there ?

 

Theres a number of people on there like myself working to raise the awareness of the others and haven't been banned yet, Sos, Atk, S Green, they've all had a mention for the sterling work there doing ..

I just want the yanks out and investment in the club, so we can be Back were we belong, and am doing all i can..

[Joe Le Taxi]

all due respect mate but you dont what you're talking about, when was the last time you were over there ?

 

Theres a number of people on there like myself working to raise the awareness of the others and haven't been banned yet, Sos, Atk, S Green, they've all had a mention for the sterling work there doing ..

I just want the yanks out and investment in the club, so we can be Back were we belong, and am doing all i can..

 

Last time I was on there was before I was banned for a month. They have some fucking mongs in both FD and EST and they have had to ban people for being too stupid. Remember RafaHoullier and the shite he used to say all the time?

[Joe Le Taxi]

Not seen this posted in a thread yet so apologies if it has been. Perhaps reading this will give us a bigger incentive to protest and rid the club of the owners. Taken from the Indipendent:

 

Rafael Benitez does not expect his Liverpool transfer kitty to be adversely affected if his club does not qualify for the Champions League this season – only because he has precious few funds to play with in the first place.

 

Benitez was advised at the start of the season that he could do little more than spend the money he generated, hence the purchases of Alberto Aquilani and Glen Johnson only once outgoing deals for Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa had been settled.

 

The manager has also spent a relatively small amount bringing Maxi Rodriguez and Sotirios Kyrgiakos to Merseyside yet he is anything but the last of the big spenders.

 

Not finishing fourth is currently unthinkable yet if they do not make it, he expects no reduction in his war chest only because he is determined not to miss what he never had.

 

"They [the owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks] told me before that it didn't make a big difference [if we don't qualify]. Every year that we have qualified for the Champions League it hasn't made a big difference so if we don't qualify this time I don't expect a big difference."

 

A failure to qualify for the Champions League would be a stark wake-up call to the fact that the likes of Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City and Aston Villa are now all genuine contenders. The hegemony of the old Big Four looks to be over – with Liverpool the principal victims – yet Benitez has not given up faith that a strong end of season can restore their position among the elite.

 

"It could go to the very end," he said. "I don't know which teams will be there. Hopefully it will be Liverpool and maybe another one but now there are four and maybe five teams involved so it is important to remain calm."

 

He also confirmed that Albert Riera's time at Anfield is almost up after he publicly criticised the Liverpool manager last week. Benitez said Riera could be sent out on loan.

 

 

Benitez: I have no cash for a summer spree - Premier League, Football - The Independent

[RoboRiise]

Shit just got serious....Any developments on this?

 

Funny you should ask.

 

 

Ok, if you can spare five minutes this weekend, here’s a little something you could do as part of an ongoing campaign about the ownership issue.

 

Below this message is an e-mail. As concerned fans of the club, we’d like you to send this to the members of the Treasury Select Committee (e-mail addresses are below) and to CC the e-mail to members of the management teams at RBS , Liverpool FC and the Rhone Group (again, addresses are below.)

 

After that, please click this link (it’s the UK parliament website, totally safe) and enter your postcode. This will bring up a page for your MP. Please click the “e-mail your MP” link, paste the e-mail into the box, change the first paragraph to remove the reference to the Treasury Select Committee and send it. If you are comfortable with doing so, please include your address in the e-mail to your MP, as parliamentary protocol dictates that MPs should only respond to concerns raised by their own constituents. If your local MP is also a member of the Treasury Select Committee, please don’t send the e-mail twice. Please do not forward the e-mail to journalists and other media sources (other than local press and radio outside the Merseyside area) as this has been done separately.

 

If you would rather write your own e-mail, no problem – this is just a suggestion. If you aren’t in the UK, you could still e-mail RBS, the club the Rhone Group to focus their attention on these issues. If you would prefer to send a letter, you can download the text below in .doc and .rtf formats from this link.

 

Last but not least, if you’re a member of a fan club, pass this on. If you want to put it on another forum and they’re happy with that, please do. Facebook? No problem. Spread it around as much as you like.

 

To: aingern@parliament.uk; crowthers@parliament.uk; breedc@parliament.uk; cousinsj@parliament.uk; fallonm@parliament.uk; keebles@parliament.uk; andylovemp@aol.com; john.mcfall@blueyonder.co.uk; mannj@parliament.uk; james@jamesplaskitt.com; john@johnthurso.org.uk; markwtodd@btconnect.com; tryriea@parliament.uk; duggang@parliament.uk

 

CC: Stephen.Hester@rbs.co.uk; John.HOURICAN@rbs.com; Roger.Lowry@rbs.co.uk; rebecca.oliphant@rbs.com; richard.holliday@rbs.com; ian.ayre@liverpoolfc.tv; Philip.Nash@liverpoolfc.tv; thicks@hicksholdings.com; tohjr@hicksholdings.com; gngillett@bcmgt.com; zubillaga@rhonegroup.com; agostinelli@rhonegroup.com; langman@rhonegroup.com; tigay@rhonegroup.com; teubner@rhonegroup.com; flynn@rhonegroup.com; coquery@rhonegroup.com; lenza@rhonegroup.com; slater@rhonegroup.com; beraudo@rhonegroup.com; groos@rhonegroup.com; gordon@rhonegroup.com; sweet@rhonegroup.com; cooper@rhonegroup.com; kopfaithful@hotmail.co.uk

 

 

I am a fan of Liverpool Football Club and a UK taxpayer.

 

I am writing to you in your role as a member of the Treasury Select Committee. I have also sent this e-mail to my local MP and have copied it to members of the senior management teams of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Liverpool Football Club and the Rhone Group, as the issues below relate directly to the state-supported bank’s continuing involvement in extending credit to the owners of Liverpool Football Club. These issues are cross-party and highlight a concern that has often been in the spotlight of media attention in recent months, namely the increasingly unsustainable business models of several Premier League football clubs including Liverpool FC.

 

You may be aware that in February 2007, Liverpool Football Club was bought by two US based businessmen, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Despite assurances that the club would incur no debt as a result of the purchase, it quickly became clear that the club had in fact been bought using the leveraged buy-out model and that the entire purchase debt was held against a holding company, Kop Football Limited. This holding company had exactly one asset: Liverpool Football Club.

 

The new owners made several promises to fans of the football club, including assurances that “a spade will be in the ground within sixty days” to commence building work on a much-needed new stadium. Indeed, the club’s inability to attract funding for this stadium at suitably competitive lending rates was the main reason cited by former owner David Moores and then Chief Executive Rick Parry when explaining why the club was put on the market.

 

In the three years since the club was sold, it has become clear that Tom Hicks and George Gillett are unable to deliver on the promises that they made. This has not only affected fans of the football club; the failure to even begin work on the proposed new stadium has had a devastating effect on the Anfield area in general. The streets around the stadium are filled with boarded-up houses, the area is suffering from a severe economic and social decline and with the plans to build a new stadium seemingly no nearer to fruition than they were three years ago, the outlook is bleak for local residents.

 

The Royal Bank of Scotland is Liverpool Football Club’s major creditor and the last published accounts show that the club has debts of approximately £237 million. The club’s own auditors, KPMG, expressed reservations as to whether it would be able to continue as going concern if this situation persists. Meanwhile, the club is making interest payments of £30 million per year to the Royal Bank of Scotland and this money ultimately comes from the pockets of the club’s fans.

 

Although Liverpool Football Club has global recognition since it is the most successful club side in the history of English football, many of the fans that are paying the interest on the owner’s debts are UK taxpayers, creating an extraordinary situation whereby some of the same UK taxpayers and Liverpool fans responsible for providing the money to ensure the Royal Bank of Scotland remained in business are now paying a total of £30 million each year to the bank to keep two people responsible for a string of broken promises in charge of the club, when a significant proportion of those people do not want them to have any further involvement.

 

This is exacerbated by fact that the entire reason £500 billion of UK taxpayer’s money was used to underwrite several UK banks (including the Royal Bank of Scotland) when the bank rescue package was agreed in 2008 as a response to the global banking crisis, was that the banks themselves had taken manifestly unsound lending decisions; a pattern of behaviour that seems to be repeating itself in this case.

 

It is nothing short of a disgrace that UK taxpayer’s money is being used to limit the risk to which the banks are exposed when lending money to customers that are neither resident, nor domiciled in the UK and have contributed nothing to the UK economy; indeed the owners of Liverpool Football Club could scarcely have done more to damage the economic interests of the Anfield area if they had set out with that specific intention.

 

The issue of the Royal Bank of Scotland continuing to extend credit to the owners of Liverpool Football Club has already been the subject of an Early Day Motion brought by six Merseyside MPs including Peter Kilfoyle, MP for Liverpool Walton, the constituency in which Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield stadium is located and which has suffered the brunt of the economic consequences of Hicks and Gillett’s appalling mismanagement.

 

I do not believe that these two individuals are fit and proper people to remain in charge of one of English football’s most historic clubs and I certainly do not believe that a state-aided bank which only remains a going concern with the support of vast amounts of UK taxpayer’s money should extend further credit to them, thereby perpetuating this unhappy situation.

 

I understand that the stated position of the UK government is that it does not intend to have any involvement in the day to day affairs of the bank and instead trusts the bank to make lending decisions according to commercial imperatives. It is astonishing that UK taxpayer’s money has been handed over for the banks to effectively do with it as they please, yet our elected representatives seek to abdicate themselves of their responsibility to the electorate to ensure pubic money is used wisely. Trusting banks to make commercially sound decisions in accordance with recognised risk management processes, instead pursuing short term profits at the risk of long term disaster, is precisely what caused the banking crisis in the first place.

 

Even looking at the commercial aspects of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s involvement with Hicks and Gillett separately from the issue of UK taxpayer’s money does not provide much comfort.

 

In particular, in 1999 Tom Hicks’ previous investment firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst bought Corinthians Paulista, one of the most famous teams in Brazilian football. Just as with Liverpool Football Club, the takeover was sold to fans with promises of a new stadium and economic security and just as with Liverpool, the stadium never materialised, Hicks fell out with his co-investors and the entire shambolic affair ended with the club being sold, resulting in financial problems and ultimately relegation to a lower division, which in turn affected the club’s potential to generate revenue.

 

In response to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s requirement that the club’s overall debt is reduced by £100m before any re-financing of the current loan is agreed (which itself suggests that the bank is concerned about the current level of debt and the owner’s abiliity to meet their committments), Hicks and Gillett have now begun an unedifying search for further investment, which has led them to go cap in hand to speculative investment firms and other similar groups. In particular, recent reports of their negotiations with the Rhone Group, a private equity firm who will no doubt be primarily concerned with taking yet more quick profits from the pockets of long-suffering fans, suggest that the financial situation at Liverpool Football Club is only likely to deteriorate further as long as Hicks and Gillett remain in charge.

 

I urge the Committee, along with my MP, to bring whatever pressure you can to bear on the Royal Bank of Scotland to reconsider it’s decision to extend further credit to the owners of Liverpool Football Club. The club is not in safe hands, the owners of the club have a track record of failed investment in sports clubs and UK taxpayer’s money should not be used to underwrite the loans which are currently being used to extend their failed reign beyond it’s natural lifespan.

 

I would like to see the Royal Bank of Scotland call in the existing loans immediately, removing the risk to the UK taxpayer and the financial burden on the club by forcing a sale to owners more able to manage it in an appropriate way, for the benefit of fans and the local community alike. Of course, the current owners could retain control of the club by paying back the debts themselves from their vast personal wealth, but in view of their preferred business model, I am sure that the thought of exposing themselves to the risks created by their incompetence would be extremely unpalatable. As things stand, they are reaping all of the rewards and we, fans of the club and taxpayers of the UK, are bearing all of the risk; a situation which is completely unacceptable.

 

I shall certainly be taking a keen note of your stance on these issues when considering my vote in the forthcoming general election.

 

Sincerely

 

Thank you for your time.

[Soup]

Good work RR.

[StevieH]

Funny you should ask.

 

 

Ok, if you can spare five minutes this weekend, here’s a little something you could do as part of an ongoing campaign about the ownership issue.

 

Below this message is an e-mail. As concerned fans of the club, we’d like you to send this to the members of the Treasury Select Committee (e-mail addresses are below) and to CC the e-mail to members of the management teams at RBS , Liverpool FC and the Rhone Group (again, addresses are below.)

 

After that, please click this link (it’s the UK parliament website, totally safe) and enter your postcode. This will bring up a page for your MP. Please click the “e-mail your MP” link, paste the e-mail into the box, change the first paragraph to remove the reference to the Treasury Select Committee and send it. If you are comfortable with doing so, please include your address in the e-mail to your MP, as parliamentary protocol dictates that MPs should only respond to concerns raised by their own constituents. If your local MP is also a member of the Treasury Select Committee, please don’t send the e-mail twice. Please do not forward the e-mail to journalists and other media sources (other than local press and radio outside the Merseyside area) as this has been done separately.

 

If you would rather write your own e-mail, no problem – this is just a suggestion. If you aren’t in the UK, you could still e-mail RBS, the club the Rhone Group to focus their attention on these issues. If you would prefer to send a letter, you can download the text below in .doc and .rtf formats from this link.

 

Last but not least, if you’re a member of a fan club, pass this on. If you want to put it on another forum and they’re happy with that, please do. Facebook? No problem. Spread it around as much as you like.

 

 

 

Thank you for your time.

 

Done

[Guest simon]

Sent

[Soup]

sent.

 

got a bounce back off tryriea@parliament.uk

[RoboRiise]

Good work RR.

 

 

All that kicked off from your post the other day mate, that's where I got the idea from. Good work yourself.

[RoboRiise]

sent.

 

got a bounce back off tryriea@parliament.uk

 

 

That's because it's a fucking typo. Grrr. Should be tyriea@parliament.uk, although even that's just a guess based on the standard format for parliamentary e-mail addresses - I'm pretty sure he was the only one that I couldn't find a website or listed e-mail address for.

[melons]

Done and forwarded.

 

Edit,

 

Simon, or any of you others on the facebool link, can you add an event regarding this, you can list whats on it, but it's some where simple to direct people that are not so much huge fans and wouldn't follow the link to here, but would follow it to a face ache page and send the email?

[Trucker Paddy]

good letter, sent

[StevieH]

Only 24 people have sent the email so far!!

[melons]

Had a reply, they want my post code - i'll reply later (i have to leave in 15 to get to the match) asking the relevance due to the question being related to the select committee and not a constituent issue.

[melons]

Only 24 people have sent the email so far!!

 

No bloody way? i know where 3 of those at the very least came from.

 

 

 

Come on you lot, pull your finger out.

[Trucker Paddy]

Only 24 people have sent the email so far!!

 

Sunday Morning Steve give it 48 hours and see what the count is. i got 3 auto replies

[StevieH]

No bloody way? i know where 3 of those at the very least came from.

 

 

 

Come on you lot, pull your finger out.

 

25 & some have sent the email more than once.

 

If people are registered on other forums, perhaps they can spread the word and encourage others to send the message.

[Guest simon]

Had a reply, they want my post code - i'll reply later (i have to leave in 15 to get to the match) asking the relevance due to the question being related to the select committee and not a constituent issue.

 

Me to from MR Brady.

[Soup]

I got the same he's on the select committee. So I replied saying the email is directed at him as a member of the select committee.

[StevieH]

Response from Mark Todd yestersday morning:

 

"The Treasury Select Committee does meet the management of RBS from time to time but the remaining meetings before the election will focus on the Budget. Individual members are free to raise matters that concern them. I should correct you in one point. While the taxpayer has much the largest stake in RBS it is not (unlike Northern Rock) state-owned. There remain many other shareholders and shares continue to trade. This is one of the reasons why the government should not direct the business except in the broadest terms (for example in setting broad quantitative targets on lending as happened in the Budget speech). The other is that the government's declared purpose is to sell the taxpayers' stake and recover the funds committed.

 

A better focus would surely be to try to address the appalling governance models of most football clubs which allowed this takeover to happen at all?"

 

Mark Todd

[Joe Le Taxi]

Sent yesterday but not had time to reply. Got a reply from Mr Brady's office. What do I do next?