I’ll be honest with you, I’m hooked. It’s got everything, hasn’t it? Evil business types, a passionate set of put-upon innocents, shady, faceless corporations and hedge funds, and a sense of foreboding like a sky before a storm. The legal proceedings surrounding the potential and protracted Liverpool takeover saga that have overshadowed this past international week have taken on the guise of a Hollywood epic, albeit one commanding up-to-the-minute, blow-by-blow Tweets and texts contributed by reporters, legal eagles and jobbing members of the public alike. The Guardian has been running a live coverage page since Tuesday, encouraging regular readers and rubberneckers alike to share their thoughts and watch on as Tom Hicks and George Gillett seek to use every dastardly trick in the book to cling onto their doomed ownership of Liverpool FC by the fingertips.
I’m as surprised as anyone by the media saturation brought about by recent events. I think of financial-based court cases, and I imagine a series of rather dry to-ings and fro-ings between people in costume-drama get-up; strange cape-like garments and bizarre Little Lord Fauntleroy wigs. Instead, I’ve found myself glued to these updates in a manner previously reserved for transfer deadline days such as these. Yesterday evening, as the 5pm ruling from the presiding Mr Justice Floyd crept ever closer, I became almost physically unable to drag myself away from my desk, frantically refreshing my screen despite being set to meet a friend straight from the office. I was on time, as it turns out, but my thoughts never drifted far from the Siren call of the refresh button.
There’s a proper cast of characters involved here: Hicks and Gillett are firmly cast in the duel-roles of the Evil Overlords, bleeding the little man dry for a quick penny and not caring a jot who they hurt in the process. Then there are the heroes – Broughton, Purslow and Ayers, or the ‘Liverpool Three’ as they’ve become known, although this does make them sound less like crusaders for good and more like a bunch of men falsely imprisoned on nationalist terror charges. Meanwhile, the QCs bring a welcome air of gravitas, while tossing out soundbites such as “grotesque parody” toward the American ne’er-do-wells. As day one drew to a close, the writers fed us a fresh twist – a Texan court thrown into the mix with SPECTRE-like ominousness, pulling metaphorical levers from afar and possibly siphoning nuclear missiles from a rogue former Eastern Bloc state, although that’s pure speculation on my part.
While we await further and hopefully final developments, it’s worth considering just how the coverage of this case reflects our growing need to know about, well, anything really. This kind of interactive media peepshow has become the norm not just in football, or indeed sport as whole, but in so many other areas of everyday life too. Prime Minister’s Questions now claims its own page on the Beeb, just so we don’t miss a second of the nation’s weekly dose of well-educated put-downs and backbench rah-rahing. As the world gets smaller, so we need (or are at least told we need) instant knowledge of the details of things we previously thought of as, if not incidental, then at best beyond our understanding or desire. Perhaps this means that we are becoming better educated in the ways of the world – knowledge is power, after all.
As we contemplate Liverpool’s next steps, let’s not forget Dundee , placed into administration this week and now facing a perilous race against time for survival. There are many clubs across the country, professional and otherwise, staring down similarly grim futures and while Liverpool may not now face the daunting prospects of point deduction and asset-stripping, it’s easy to forget that it’s not always about the big boys and their big bucks.
As it stands, NESV are still pending the go ahead to sign off on their deal, rendering the future of Liverpool still very much up in the air. I feel for their supporters – they are a proud club of rich tradition and I don’t think anyone that loves football wants to see them go to the wall. Still, it’s been entertaining hasn’t it?
~ Matt
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