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Embarrasing this. EXCLUSIVE: Liverpool issue grovelling apology for tapping up Dempsey By MARTIN SAMUEL PUBLISHED: 23:10, 11 December 2012 | UPDATED: 10:45, 12 December 2012 Liverpool have made a grovelling apology to Fulham over the tapping-up of Clint Dempsey in the summer. A statement from Fulham, expected today, will confirm that in return the club have dropped their complaint to the Premier League over the affair. The peace deal came only after a personal visit by Liverpool co-owner Tom Werner to Craven Cottage chairman Mohamed Al Fayed was followed up by a letter from Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre admitting that the club’s behaviour ‘was wrong’ and ‘simply never should have occurred’. The letter, sent last Friday, confirms that a meeting took place between Werner and Fayed, during which the former apologised for Liverpool’s actions regarding Dempsey last summer. Fulham blame Liverpool for unsettling the player and creating the circumstances that led to his move to Tottenham on transfer-deadline day. Ayre wrote: 'Please also consider this letter from me to be an additional expression of sincere regret and apology from our club to your club for our actions last summer. Our club can do better and we pledge that it will.' Fulham’s official complaint followed a series of clumsy bulletins from Liverpool and their owners, the Fenway Sports Group. The first was an announcement on the FSG website that Liverpool had signed Dempsey from Fulham. This was followed by an interview on the Liverpool website with manager Brendan Rogers, in which he talked of the USA forward in glowing terms. Finally, pictures of Liverpool's new strip with Dempsey's name on the back were published. The 29-year-old had been on a summer break in America when the FSG announcement was made, and Fulham’s complaint to the Premier League intimated that their relationship with the player who was last season’s top scorer had not recovered from that point. Dempsey did not officially go on strike, but told Fulham he wanted to leave. The club considered he was becoming a bad influence in the dressing room and he did not play a game for Fulham before signing for Tottenham.

Ladies & Gents, please find below a copy of an email sent this evening to the head of Liverpool City Council - Joe Anderson, and also copied to Liverpool Football Club and the media in the UK and USA about the stadium and regeneration issues. joe.anderson@liverpool.gov.uk Dear Sirs, Kop Faithful welcomed the update on the stadium issue following the joint statement released by LFC and Liverpool City Council on the 10th of July ‘011, however we are disappointed and frustrated to learn that after 9 months of dialogue between the two parties, there are still obstacles preventing the potential re-development of Anfield. Many supporters would prefer the club to stay and redevelop our iconic home, particularly as we consider this to be a more cost effective solution than building a new stadium in Stanley Park. A significant refurbishment of the main stand and Anfield Road stands is a viable option that would bring prosperity to the area and create employment both during the construction phase and post completion. It would also trigger the same much needed regeneration of the area. At the very least, the club should be free to explore both options unfettered. Council leader Joe Anderson claims that the Council will continue to support what the club are trying to deliver, but how can that be the case if there are still land/property acquisition, environmental and statutory issues that are blocking Liverpool FC’s proposed plans? It has come to light that when Mr Anderson first met with Fenway Sports Group following their takeover in October 2010, a potential ground-share with Everton FC was discussed. It's fair to say that the vast majority of Liverpool fans abhor the notion of a ground-share with Everton, and fear that key Everton-supporting individuals within the local council may be trying to block Liverpool’s plans in preference for a ground-share with our cash-strapped neighbours. Kop Faithful has learnt that the council are still attempting to force Liverpool FC into a groundshare with Everton and have recently presented the club with proposed plans for a shared stadium at the central docks (http://onfinite.com/libraries/1529119/54a.jpg). 650 acres of redundant docks in Liverpool and Birkenhead are due for regeneration as part of the £10 billion Liverpool Waters and Wirral Waters schemes due to be carried out by Peel Holdings. The property investment company have previously worked in close partnership with Liverpool City Council before and seemingly enjoy a very close relationship with Mr Anderson. “Joe Anderson is working for Peel Holdings, he may not be taking a wage, but he is working for them alright. Today's paper is a joint effort from the Daily Peel and Council to propagate the myths that English Heritage will not be listened to by this current council. We have laws to protect us from Joe and the cosy little relationship with Peel Holdings, and the World Heritage Steering Group and all that the council is. They are proving to be no better than the last lot of uneducated clowns that destroyed the Pier Head. Take no nonsense from this man he is far too close to Peel Holdings and Lindsay Ashworth their chief arrogant bastard.” Liverpool Preservation Trust: Joe Anderson-Spiving for Peel Holdings. Back in February 2006 the Echo reported that Everton FC (the club that Mr Anderson supports) were in talks with Peel Holdings regarding the construction of a new stadium at Switch Island (icLiverpool - We'll build Blues' new stadium ). Kop Faithful understands that Mr Anderson and Peel Holdings are now proposing that a new shared stadium is constructed at Clarence Docks and will be the centre piece of the Liverpool Waters development. We believe that Peel are attempting to model the Liverpool Waters development on a similar scheme in Melbourne, where a stadium was used as a driver to get investment down to the docks, which had been unused and fell into disrepair since the 1980's due to containerisation taking the trade away. The stadium at Melbourne attracts 2 million people a year and was a key driver to getting multi-national companies like Sony and Ericsson to invest in the area. The proposed scheme sounds like a money spinner for Peel Holdings, the docks and for those who will have their palms greased with silver, but what about the regeneration of Anfield and the wellbeing of the local community that Mr Anderson was so keen to safeguard? Liverpool fans worldwide fully support the clubs plans, whether they involve redeveloping Anfield or building our own new stadium in Stanley Park - both would clearly make a positive contribution to the local area. However, it's fair to say that all Liverpool fans totally oppose a groundshare with Everton FC and question the Council's commitment to doing all they can to keep Liverpool FC in L4, and to regenerate the local area. It is time for Liverpool City Council and Joe Anderson to stop trying to bail out Everton FC, put their cards on the table and work in partnership with the city’s biggest revenue earner for the good of the people of Anfield and the city as a whole. NO TO GROUNDSHARE. Yours faithfully, KOP FAITHFUL The Kop Faithful - No to RBS refinance - Liverpool FC Twitter

Ian Ayre really is something special when he can make Rick Parry look competent. FSG have made enough balls ups in their time here, but continually promoting this fool is up there at the top. Why is this club always run by idiots?When will we ever get a proper structure in place? If anything good comes from last night's fiasco then let's hope it's a proper Football Administrator/CEO being imminent. We can't go on as we are.

I reckon he'll go with the same 11 v Norwich. Maybe because it's Stoke, Coates in with Agger to LB, Johnson back to RB. I think we'll score a few, just hope we don't concede them again.

Liverpool Football Club's principal owner John W Henry has written the following open letter to supporters: john henry I am as disappointed as anyone connected with Liverpool Football Club that we were unable to add further to our strike force in this summer transfer window, but that was not through any lack of desire or effort on the part of all of those involved. They pushed hard in the final days of the transfer window on a number of forward targets and it is unfortunate that on this occasion we were unable to conclude acceptable deals to bring those targets in. But a summer window which brought in three young, but significantly talented starters in Joe Allen, Nuri Sahin and Fabio Borini as well as two exciting young potential stars of the future - Samed Yesil and Oussama Assaidi - could hardly be deemed a failure as we build for the future. Nor should anyone minimise the importance of keeping our best players during this window. We successfully retained Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel and Luis Suarez. We greatly appreciate their faith and belief in the club. And we successfully negotiated new, long-term contracts with Luis and with Martin. No one should doubt our commitment to the club. In Brendan Rodgers we have a talented young manager and we have valued highly his judgement about the make-up of the squad. This is a work in progress. It will take time for Brendan to instill his philosophy into the squad and build exactly what he needs for the long term. The transfer policy was not about cutting costs. It was - and will be in the future - about getting maximum value for what is spent so that we can build quality and depth. We are avowed proponents of EUFA's Financial Fair Play agenda that was this week reiterated by Mr Platini - something we heartily applaud. We must comply with Financial Fair Play guidelines that ensure spending is tied to income. We have been successful in improving the commercial side of the club and the monies generated going forward will give us greater spending power in the coming years. We are still in the process of reversing the errors of previous regimes. It will not happen overnight. It has been compounded by our own mistakes in a difficult first two years of ownership. It has been a harsh education, but make no mistake, the club is healthier today than when we took over. Spending is not merely about buying talent. Our ambitions do not lie in cementing a mid-table place with expensive, short-term quick fixes that will only contribute for a couple of years. Our emphasis will be on developing our own players using the skills of an increasingly impressive coaching team. Much thought and investment already have gone into developing a self-sustaining pool of youngsters imbued in the club's traditions. That ethos is to win. We will invest to succeed. But we will not mortgage the future with risky spending. After almost two years at Anfield, we are close to having the system we need in place. The transfer window may not have been perfect but we are not just looking at the next 16 weeks until we can buy again: we are looking at the next 16 years and beyond. These are the first steps in restoring one of the world's great clubs to its proper status. It will not be easy, it will not be perfect, but there is a clear vision at work. We will build and grow from within, buy prudently and cleverly and never again waste resources on inflated transfer fees and unrealistic wages. We have no fear of spending and competing with the very best but we will not overpay for players. We will never place this club in the precarious position that we found it in when we took over at Anfield. This club should never again run up debts that threaten its existence. Most of all, we want to win. That ambition drives every decision. It is the Liverpool way. We can and will generate the revenues to achieve that aim. There will be short-term setbacks from time to time, but we believe we have the right people in place to bring more glory to Anfield. Finally, I can say with authority that our ownership is not about profit. Contrary to popular opinion, owners rarely get involved in sports in order to generate cash. They generally get involved with a club in order to compete and work for the benefit of their club. It's often difficult. In our case we work every day in order to generate revenues to improve the club. We have only one driving ambition at Liverpool and that is the quest to win the Premier League playing the kind of football our supporters want to see. That will only occur if we do absolutely the right things to build the club in a way that makes sense for supporters, for us and for those who will follow us. We will deliver what every long-term supporter of Liverpool Football Club aches for. JOHN W HENRY Taken from the offal.

Following recent events including John Henry's open letter we have released the following statement asking once again for direction from FSG: FSG - We Still Need Direction - Spirit of Shankly Spirit of Shankly

Could the stadium costs, be it a new build or redevelopment not be met by pre-selling season tickets to raise capital? If the club offered an 8 year season ticket from the season the stadium opens for £5000, meaning fans could save about £1800 and not be at risk to future price rises, would people want it? If the club managed to sell 60k 8 year season tickets at 5k, that’d raise £300m. I’m not saying they would, cos finding 5k would be difficult; maybe the club could look to work with a bank and offer a credit card for it or something. But in theory it’d be enough for a new ground before any naming rights etc. were brought in. At the moment, I’m guessing numbers, 40k ST holders paying £800 so bringing in £32m a year. So it’d mean that for 8 seasons we’re £32m down, so like Arsenal we’d have to be a bit shrewder in the transfer market and that’s shit. But a lot of the costs would be negated by the shitty stadium naming rights and the amount of extra income coming in from cup and European games. Not sure on the details but isn’t their some enhanced deal from Sky and BT coming, so use that to cover the costs a bit, fuck just adding it to players wages and agents fees. Does anyone think that’d work? I’m just sick of reading through all the shit in transfer threads and theirs loads of good points in the FSG letter thread, but it seems all it boils down to is the revenue we lose every match day to our competitors. I love the idea of these American marketing men expanding the brand and reaping the benefits, and fair play on the Standard Chartered and Warrior deals, they appear genuinely good deals, but that’s as much a reflection on the poor commercial running of the club from previous regimes as it’s a positive on FSG’s behalf. I’ve just spent a couple of months in Bangkok and Bangkok loves Liverpool FC. Thailand as a whole supports United, but Bangkok mostly Liverpool with United close behind. But nobody buys any proper gear, I bought a pretty decent copy of the warrior shirt about a week after it was released for £6. Copied stuff everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, these countries are getting richer and theirs a growing middle class who want the proper thing, but their support changes so easy that the main thing is if you want cash is your good on the pitch. The only way I can see these fans pay is by advertisements in live games, so the way to raise money is to be on the tele and City were on the tele when Aguero won the league and not coincidentally, a load of blag City shirts were been knocked out warehouses in Bangkok the next day. The only way we can hope to continually be a force in the game is to get the stadium built, most of our other big problems are a consequence of this major fucking one that’s gone on for 20 years. If not the idea above has anyone got any suggestions? Big clubs make money out of these foreign markets via sponsors and other companies. In Bangkok Chelsea and United players are on the sides of the sky train in association with Singha and a motorbike company makes the official LFC and MUFC scooters and bikes. But its only big clubs, Chang beer has no association with Everton in Thailand, I might have seen 1 thing at a shitty town. Instead all their advertisements are with Barca as their Asian representatives or some shite - it doesn't matter how good you are at marketting if what you've got on the pitch is shite. To get quality on the pitch year after year we need a stadium.

Maybe he's confusing having talks with an actual job offer!? Liverpool offered Roberto Martinez the job before hiring Brendan Rodgers says the Wigan boss - Mirror Online Roberto Martinez has claimed he turned down the chance to manage Liverpool. In an interview to be published on Tuesday, Wigan manager Martinez has spoken for the first time about the extensive talks he held with the Reds earlier in the summer. “We must educate people," said the Spaniard. "In five or six years, we [Wigan] reap the benefits. Maybe I won’t be there then. "But this is not why I stayed, when Liverpool made me an offer." Asked why he did stay, causing Liverpool to hire Swansea's Brendan Rodgers instead, Martinez - who went on a sign a new deal with the perennial relegation battlers - insisted it was because of the support of chairman Dave Whelan. “I stayed because my chairman is unique," he continued.

we missed out on sigurdsson FSG talked up this whole new revolutionary management structure - and then caved, so it's Rodgers and Ayre Rodgers - who seems to be focusing on the miniscule pool of players who have worked with him before and Ayre who has no experience in transfer negotiations and boy is it showing ok so the sigurdsson miss is one thing, we didn't want to offer wages to compete with spurs (if we rate the lad why not?) I can understand one eff-up but now all the talk over the last week was tello and sahin on loan, tello and sahin, tello and sahin, liverpool hopeful of securing both deals..... and what happend - we more than likely miss both, so that is three big misses in one window for us, an amazing record considering we were so sure we were going to bag all three on top of all that we have failed to offload guys like cole, adam and carroll, on top of that we have had to pay many of the players we have offloaded to guy and received a sum total of 1 million in transfer fees for 5 players the world of football have us marked down as a laughing-stock when it comes to the transfer-market and for another transfer window we have proven them right our latest tactic seems to be to hang Dempsey out to dry in the hope of getting a few million off the fee if we even do go for him so it looks like it will be borini, allen, assaidi, dempsey and de vries look at those five names again, be honest with yourself, that is nowhere near good enough to make up the gap on the top four oh and question marks still surround Agger the Sahin transfer was a monumental moment in the ayre/rodgers/fsg axis and they failed and because they failed the club will suffer as long as fail to secure players like Sahin we will get nowhere, the players purchased are not good enough, I am tired of excuses - these guys aren't doing a good enough job for the club and a 3 million Moroccan winger from a midtable Dutch club ain't going to paper over the massive cracks