LONDON -- Liverpool's takeover by the owners of the Boston Red Sox will not go ahead if the English club is forced to enter a form bankruptcy protection and gets penalized in the Premier League standings, people with knowledge of the negotiations said Saturday.
Liverpool is already in the three-team relegation zone after its worst start to a season in more than 50 years, and would receive a nine-point penalty from the Premier League if it became insolvent before the Boston deal was completed.
A penalty could doom Liverpool to dropping down to English soccer's second tier, and would cause New England Sports Ventures, which owns baseball's Red Sox, to walk away from the deal, two people told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because neither side is discussing the situation publicly.
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The club could avert financial administration if three Liverpool board members persuade a London court next week to force co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. to sanction the 300 million-pound (C$484 million) sale to New England Sports Ventures.
Hicks and Gillett will claim the trio don't have the power to approve a takeover bid which they said "dramatically undervalues" the club.
But if the court rules in favour of Hicks and Gillett, the pair must repay the team's bank debt by next Friday to prevent the Royal Bank of Scotland taking control of Liverpool and potentially placing the holding company for the club in administration, a form of bankruptcy protection.
A third person familiar with the negotiations said that, in this scenario, NESV could try to secure a cheaper deal to buy the 18-time English champions.
Meanwhile, before accepting NESV's bid earlier this week, Liverpool's board also considered an offer from an unidentified Asian consortium. And even though it has approved NESV's potential takeover, the Premier League is still carrying out the same checks into the suitability of the Asian group to run the club.
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10-10-2010, 07:56 AM #1The MacGuest
Liverpool's Future To Be Decided Soon
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10-10-2010, 11:13 AM #2The Eating Machine!
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The stupidity of the Yanks :lmao:
If Kenpachi used his Bankai, Armageddon, Ragnarok, and every other form of the apocalypse would march from the depths of hell with their demonic legions of death.... then take one look at him and turn tail and run.
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