diego

As someone has who met him and also spoken to him several times on the phone let me give you a preview of what it might be like if you call. He gets into the office about 10 am Colorado time. His loyal secretary will answer, ask your business and then put you on hold. He will almost certainly be in a "board" meeting. He never says which board and most of these board meetings seem to be conference calls. He will come on the phone telling you that he has interrupted his board meeting to talk to you and will regale you with his current "message". He will probaby tell you that all press reports are wrong, that he wants to be your friend and may even ask you to be his advisor. He will also ask you to call again. Repeat the formula every time you call.

I've already answered this in detail yesterday or the day before. He did not invest in pizza stores, depanneurs and clothing stores for immigration purposes. The bottom line is that those sort of businesses do not qualify an applicant for immigration. If he is an economic immigrant he would have to make a hands-off investment in a project proposed and administered by a resident Canadian company approved by the Federal and Quebec government and he would have to leave his money in it for at least three years. In addition to that, after he has arrived in Canada, he might also get a job or start any other kind of business including the pizza parlous etc you refer to. None of these would hasten his application for immigration. In fact, he would not be allowed to set them up and run them legally unless he was already a landed immigrant - which is the preliminary status before a person assumes full citizenship. Landed status and citizenship is not granted on the basis of how many pizza parlours you run but on the criteria I set out yesterday which must be satisfied before an applicant arrives in Canada.

He's extremely depressed to the point of clinical depression when they reminded him after the game that England was not his club team and he to go back to LFC.

I see all the Bascomites and the cackling old TLW biddies are working themselves up again - "he's" back. Some of them can hardly stop peeing themselves with excitement. Its just like old times. I guess we can expect this ritual whenever Rafa vistis his family.

Its being said that Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman a senior figure in one of Mexico's most distinguished narco families has put together a consortium of investors to take control of LFC. Senior sources close to the process said that as a sign of good faith he has already delivered 5,710,500,000 Mexican pesos (450,000,000 USD) to MB with the instructions that if he does pass the Premier League's fit and proper person test, MB is to invest the cash in British Airways pension fund, a national chain of Taco parlours or some other suitable money-laundering scheme of MB's choice.

Yeah, Kirdi, Gillet and the Bascomites from TLW - birds of a feather and all that.

He didn't leave his house - the interview was by phone. He was spreading copious amounts of anti-fungus cream on his crotch at the time Bloomberg called.

Not to be pedantic - but if he was what Canada calls an "economic immigrant" - as Golden Word indicates - he would have had to show he had about $500,000 Canadian net worth (that is when his home and all his other assets are monetised) and he would have had to invest about $150,000 cash in a project approved jointly by the Government of Quebec and the Federal Government. He would have to leave his money in the project for a minimum of three years. (I'm a little out of date and those amounts might have been a bit higher when he arrived in Quebec in 2008). Since he elected to arrive in the Province of Quebec he would also have to commit to living there for at least five years. A pizza parlour and off-licence (depanneur) would not have been approved for the immigration scheme. The projects are supposed to be organizad by Canadian companies and should involve risk and be certified by both governments as an economic benefit to Canada. He would also have had to show that he spoke either French or English and that he could support himself and any dependents he brought with him. If he satisfied all the criteria he and his entire nuclear family would be eligible for citizenship. Of couse, he may have arrived in Canada under some other visa arrangement and may not be an economic immigrant. (But "Golden Word" said he was and that's what I am addressing). I agree with his agent Diamond that immigrants who do not speak the language very well and have dependents often do open corner stores, pizza parlours, and movie rentals and the like because the whole family works in them 18 hours a day 7 days a week to support themselves until such time as they find their feet and the children get an education. But if this was the case it indicates he was not a rich man capable of starting a higher grade business - not even a restaurant. Montreal has a lot of these characters floating about claiming to have connecitons with Arab and Iranian billionaires while they themselves live in modest suburbs like Laval eking out a living with a Pizza parlour. It would be relatively easy for him to get a connection with Gillet in Montreal. Montreal is really a very small town in the very centre where the chancers circulate in the bars of a few business oriented hotels and certain restaurants. There is even a St. James Club in the financial district modelled on London gentlemen clubs.

Apparently the lawyer mentioned in the article as represeting Huang has already replied to the hatchet job. This from RAWK. EMAIL FROM LAWYER IN SPORTINGINTELLIGENCE ARTICLE Ms Rodriguez-Taseff May I thank you so much for your very quick replies. Please let Mr Haung know that the supports are not believing anything negative about him and to continue doing his best to buy the club. If you would like to balance out the article I recommend making a statement to either Rory Smith of The Telegraph newspaper or Jim Boardman of The Times. Both seem to being doing a much better job at reporting. Again thank you Neill From: LRTase To: scuwiffy Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 16:19:11 -0400 Subject: RE: RE: Mr. Shaw, Sadly, this is nothing but a hatchet job by this reporter. Mr. Huang prevailed in all of the lawsuits against him. The Court even awarded Mr. Huang $338,000 in attorneys’ fees because the lawsuit had no merit. Lida Rodriguez-Taseff Lida Rodriguez-Taseff Dear Ms RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF Thank you for your prompt reply. I am not in this instance fact checking. I am doing this as a Liverpool fan who is worried about the future ownership of his club. I believe Mr Harris has just done a hatchet job on Mr Huang and wanted to see if you had anything to say with regards to how he has used your name? Neill From: LRTaseff To: scuwiff Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 15:53:42 -0400 Subject: RE: Mr. Shaw, I am not sure who you are with. Dear Ms RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF I read with interest an article by Mr Nick Harris of Sportingintelligence.com. In this article he claims that you represented Mr Kenny Huang and attributes some quotes to you. I was wondering if you could confirm these quotes and and confirm that your cliant was the man in the attached picture? Thank you for your time Neill POSTED by Underdog Takeover Latest - CHAT & SPECULATION Thread

""I always find it hard when players criticise managers because we've never been managers ourselves....." Perhaps his conscience is beginning to keep him awake at night .....naw! FIFA.com - Carragher defends under-fire Capello

That article does not prove any dishonesty by Huang. It says he was sued for fraud etc. It also says he won the case and was awarded legal costs against those who made the false allegations. Some worry that "where there's smoke there must be fire" Don't believe it. In the USA chancers sue all the time. They often make extravagant claims - its part of the game. In fact the wilder the accusation the more likely the accuser is the cheat. In my experience, those with Chinese and Taiwanese business affiliations are wilder in their accusations and more unreasonable in their demands than others. It is part of the business culture there. It says he misrepresented his position with a reputable Chinese bank. No he didn't. He said he was on the asset management board - and he was. He never said he was on the bank's main board. It said he misrepresented his position vis a vis his ownership in a US sports team. No he didn't . He may have been careless over the semantics but he told the truth when he said he was involved in the formation of an investment group which had an interest in the team. They imply that he is lying when he says the Vice President of Templeton is working with him on the LFC bid. They are wrong. The guy in question is not working in his role as V-P of Templteon but he is part of Huang's company and and is working on the LFC deal. The rest of the article states that they are checking this and that claim he is supposed to have made leaving the insinuation that when they finish their checking - if ever - they will discover other infelicities. It reads like a put-up job. I don't know if Huang is lily-white and this article has not enlightend me to the contrary. If anything it has impressed me that he has been willing to defend himself in the courts and win - although one case remains outstanding. Huang has made a mistake in trusting a PR company to present him and his associates to the British. Obviously the firm was not equipped to furnish the facts or to withstand the kind of dirty tricks campaign Gillet is conducting second hand through his associates.

That article does not prove any dishonesty by Huang. It says he was sued for fraud etc. It also says he won the case and was awarded legal costs against those who made the false allegations. Some worry that "where there's smoke there must be fire" Don't believe it. In the USA chancers sue all the time. They often make extravagant claims - its part of the game. In fact the wilder the accusation the more likely the accuser is the cheat. In my experience, those with Chinese and Taiwanese business affiliations are wilder in their accusations and more unreasonable in their demands than others. It is part of the business culture there. It says he misrepresented his position with a reputable Chinese bank. No he didn't. He said he was on the asset management board - and he was. He never said he was on the bank's main board. It said he misrepresented his position vis a vis his ownership in a US sports team. No he didn't . He may have been careless over the semantics but he told the truth when he said he was involved in the formation of an investment group which had an interest in the team. They imply that he is lying when he says the Vice President of Templeton is working with him on the LFC bid. They are wrong. The guy in question is not working in his role as V-P of Templteon but he is part of Huang's company and and is working on the LFC deal. The rest of the article states that they are checking this and that claim he is supposed to have made leaving the insinuation that when they finish their checking - if ever - they will discover other infelicities. It reads like a put-up job. I don't know if Huang is lily-white and this article has not enlightend me to the contrary. If anything it has impressed me that he has been willing to defend himself in the courts and win - although one case remains outstanding. Huang has made a mistake in trusting a PR company to present him and his associates to the British. Obviously the firm was not equipped to furnish the facts or to withstand the kind of dirty tricks campaign Gillet is conducting second hand through his associates.

Whatever the current deal with the bank - and I would certainly not take Bascombe's or ATK's word for that - it will be known to the board and to the bidders. Their bids will reflect their understanding of the true nature of any debt and the timing of their bids will be influenced by any deadlines for repayment. But that does not mean that H&G will go quietly whatever the bid.

Why don't you start a campaign to make Bascombe manager, or play up front with Torres, or chair the board?

Its too bad you could not follow your own advice when it came to Rafa. You seem to have special devotion to Bascombe mainly because he is anti Rafa. Bascombe gets paid somewhere like 70,000 pounds a week to report on LFC which means to write about 300/400 words on Saturday afternoon. He does far less than a Jim Boardman or the many other site owners who have been investigating the owners and this bid. In fact Bascombe relies on their sites to find material to recyle. It explains why he rarely provides quotes or names his sources. I guess he got his little snippet about compound interest from someone else but does not fully understand what he wrote. It is unintelligible in the way he presented it.

Mike Jeffries is a hypocrite. He pours scorn on Huang as a chancer with limited personal funds who seeks self aggrandisment by putting together a shaky consortium to buy LFC and then uses publicity to play politics with the bidding process. That is exactly who Jeffries is and what he did in 2003 when he formed the L4 group. In those days he claimed connection with the Kraft family of New England until Kraft made it clear he was not connected with L4 and went on to deal directly with Moores and Parry. The vehicle for Jeffries bogus bid and the main way he chose to publicise and politicise it was through his close association with Duncan Oldham and Koptalk. It so happened that Jeffries had a movie coming out at that time about football. He claimed that it was set in Newcastle only because LFC had rejected his advances to have it set in LFC. Recently Jeffries claims to have discovered that the Oldham connection is not helping his current attempts to inject himself into the bidding process. The two of them are currently swinging handbags at each other. As for Jeffries expose of Huang. there is not a shred of it that was not already in the public domain. None of it was generated by Jeffries despite his dramatic claims to having been on the phone all day milking his so called extensive network of contacts. He is a bullshitter par excellence. As for the criticism of Huang, much of it centres on the fact that he has not disclosed his backers, if any. There is no evidence that the Chinese government is committed to it as a minority investor and no evidence that it is not. But no other potential bidder has disclosed or proven their source of funds, either.

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Its Bascombe so - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I've made the point before, there is no way, short of a court order, that H&G will abide by a vote of the board that they sell their shares for a price that does not cover all their debt and give them at least a nominal profit. For them debt includes all their own personal money they have "invested " in LFC. That means the loans they have advanced through Kop Holdings. They borrowed most of that money. They are, in fact, lending it to LFC at a higher rate of interest (10% p.a.) than they are paying the people they borrowed it from. That is also what David Moores did. All the money he gave to the club to purchase players was in the form of loans and he recouped all of it plus interest when he sold to H&G. So in that sense, those Moore loans have been rolled over by G&H just as all the money they paid Moores is now a loan on the club. I find it hard to believe that G&H have agreed to daily compound interest since April. If they have, they ought to have disclosed it. And if they have they must have been desperate. But it does not make sense. If they were that desparate they would have accepted the offer of 100 million for 25% from the Rhone Group. However, the more desperate they become the less likely they are to cooperate with any sale that does not help them out. They are more likely to apply for bankruptcy or administration and let LFC go to hell in a handcart. RBS is crucial. As I have said before, banks tend to be the first to blink in a stand-off with large borrowers, and in this case the bank may calculate it may lose its profitable business as LFC's banker if it takes on the owners. But the Texas bankruptcy proceedings has added another dimension of urgency and risk and that might tip the RBS into calling the loan if, in fact, H&G do not accept a bid that at least clears all outstanding debt to the bank. My guess is that Broughton will try to avoid a legal challenge from the owners by getting a bidder also to cover all the Kop Holdings loans, with interest and give G&H a nominal profit.

That's ok, because "Mr. Look-out-me" Carragher tried to link himself away earlier in the year when he said it wouldn't bother him to move to another club if he was not offered a contract. Trouble is no club showed an interest in his "come and get me" plea. He was getting worried about Rafa's comments that senior players should take responsibility for poor performances. Since then he, and his PR man Bascombe, have spent a lot of time and energy undermining Rafa. He must be very happy that Hodgson, who has no previous connections with LFC and has never been a supporter - has just announced that Carragher is "Mr. Liverpool" and should have a contract for life. It's bad enough when know-nothing hacks make these sort of satements, but its intolerable when a manager does.

The first stage is the vote. Can Purslow and Ayre be trusted to vote for the good of the club. Will they be looking for job security or even a pay off? It looks like Huang and Co have thought about that in saying that they do not envisage a wholesale clear-out of management - while not ruling it out once they come to grips with the management issues. I bet the other bidders, if any, will say the same and possibly offer other inducements to get their vote. Perhaps even G&H will try to buy their vote. Since Purlsow gave Hodgson special clauses to compensate him financially if new owners kick him out, I'm certain that he has done the same for himself and possibly the other directors. Parry got a half-million pounds bonus and a two year extension to his contract.

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I don't see him "handling" the press. I see the press treating him softly. He talks a lot more to the media than Rafa did - its almost a stream of consciousness and some of it is self-contradictory - like a guy who is not fully ITK. He did not persuade Gerrard to stay. Gerrard had no other offers. He did not persuade Torres to stay. He spent 15 minutes with Torres talking about football. Torres then required several more hours talking to Purslow who assured him that there would be a takeover followed by better image rights. He had no hand in the Cole deal. That was started before he was appointed. In the end Cole came to the team that offered him the most wages. Hodgson had no hand in the other signings - they were all arranged under Rafa's regime. Purlsow was responsible for the botched Insuna sale - Hodgson admits he knew nothing about. Most of the other sales and loans were proposed by Rafa. Hodgson is not a steady hand. His wobbling before the first cup game in which he suggested we might lose and it might be better to ditch the European Cup smacked of a guy getting in his excuses. As for player management - he has already said that players like Gerrard and Torres that complain that the team needs new players to meet their ambitions should look at themselves in the mirror. I applaud him for that. Rafa said something similar when he said senior players should take responsibility for the teams poor performance. Rafa was then subjected to a sleazy backstairs Carragher-Gerrard-Bascombe-TLW campaign of mockery for being so truthful.

And then ATK and Dougie Dunkin Donuts had a cup of tea with him.

In one corner is a sales process set up and agreed to by all parties. In the other is the greed of the owners for profit and the willingness of some buyers to pander to that greed in the hope of gaining an advantage over the other buyers. The owners agreed to the sales process from a position of weakness. Of course they will break their word if they feel it is not bringing them the profit they think they deserve. They will do it surreptitiously at first, by conniving with buyers, and openly if necessary by refusing to transfer their shares. They might calculate that if they reject the sales process, Broughton will be able to walk holding his head up high and LFC will continued to be run by their man, Purslow and a toothless manager. They may also calculate that the banks will not call the loan. It is hardly in the bank's interest to give up a cash-cow. Also banks tend to back-off in situations like this and both Gillet and Hicks know that from long experience. However, the ruling in the Texas bankruptcy court yesterday does affect the situation. Banks are more likely to act if a court has made a ruling against one of the bank's debtors or if other banks have moved first. There may even be clause in the RBS loan that allows the bank to call its loan on the basis that the borrower's credit has been seriously weakened by a related bankruptcy, judgement or serious loss of assets and the net worth the bank originally accepted as part of the security for the loan. If Hick's creditors in the USA try to seize his LFC assets this would be troubling to RBS. Even if such claims are not likely to succeed RBS would not want the additional risk of being subject to USA court rulings on creditors claims. So after the bankruptcy ruling yesterday I think Hicks is substantially weaker and the RBS more likely to act than before. At the same time Hicks may be more desperate and more likely to make rash, irrational decisions. If this analysis is correct then the Huang approach has a lot more force than the others. Huang is showing that his priority is to satisfy the banks - so even if Broughton were to walk or even if the owners were to refuse to cooperate with the agreed sales process - Huang would still be in the game.