In any other day, Gerrard’s sublime pass to Drogba will be treated as a blasphemy. The skipper’s mistakes actually change the game and eventually lead Chelsea to their crucial victory, the kind of do-or-die victory that the Blues needed to wrap the title (and even after Stevie’s ‘assist’ Chelsea’s fans still have the nerve to chant ‘paedo’ to him! Grrr)
But two days ago many Liverpool’s fans didn’t even bother to notice that pass let alone condemn it. By the time the players gather to do the lap of honor, our minds were occupied by finding a message to hang on to. How did Rafa waved? Does his hands gesture means he will leave us? What about Torres? Did he look happy enough to play next season? Gerrard?
Instead of enjoying the tribute from the players, our moment was ruined by the uncertainty that keeps on following us for the past 6 months.
Whilst the question of will Rafa stay and who will be the next Liverpool manager will keep on lingering for the next couple of days, I think the most important question every Liverpool fans needs to ask is (still) about the owner. Now, it doesn’t mean that Hicks and Gillett are responsible for every single Liverpool’s defeat and the malaise that attacks the squad, but the answer for the former question is simply irrelevant in determining Liverpool’s future. To simplify it, it doesn’t matter who will be the next Liverpool manager as long as the cry for a new credible owner is not answered.
Many could argue that this is defeatist and undermining a manager role. You could also throw an AS Roma into the equation and say “hey look, they have a bad owner and a new manager, but they are doing ok”. But do they really doing ok? Does reaching a Copa Final and threatening Inter’s domination (this season) really solve their problem? Their owner is still using Roma for her own advantage; they still need to sell players to strengthen the squad, and they still rely on an aging Totti to lift their performance. Of course changing the manager has taken them forward to a certain extent. But that’s about it. They move forward but they are not going anywhere.
Back to Liverpool, the same problem also happened and has been going on since the day of Sir John Smith retired from the chairman position back in 1990. In Sir John Smith’s days, Liverpool was the best-run club in the land, boasting the “boot-room” system of promotion and an excellent commercial activity. That’s what I think is the foundation of Liverpool’s success in the past.
But Liverpool never finds that kind of chairman again. For the past 20 years we have seen/read how Liverpool’s board took awful decisions over and over again: Souness was kept too long, the double manager shambles, Rick Parry playing politic with Rafa, David Moores refusal to take a loan for developing a new stadium, Moores selecting Hicks and Gillett as Liverpool new owner, the failure on capitalizing a new market on Asia and America, and the most important thing the non-existence of Liverpool’s commercial plan for about 18 years.
When Arbeloa leaves for Madrid last summer, he revealed a stunning fact that Liverpool (and Torres) was Adidas number one shirt seller (last year). That’s how massive Liverpool as a brand is. And with an already established fanatical global fan base, one could only wonder how on earth Liverpool is so fucked up financially, and what has Liverpool board ever done for years.
And it’s not just about the money. As an organization Liverpool are crying for someone who could steady the ship and bring some kind of leadership. Our chairman is a Chelsea fan and his main job is to find a buyer. Our owners are some incompetent investors who destroy sports clubs all around the world. Our managing director was busy doing a negotiation behind the managers back right before a massive European semifinal. All of them didn’t have a background on managing a football club and frankly I don’t believe that they have Liverpool’s best interest in their mind. (If Rafa leaves, I, for one, will not trust any of them to choose the right replacement.)
That’s why the need for the right owner is more crucial than ever. Not a sugar daddy or some filthy rich consortium, but someone who’s not searching for an instant profit (I’m not under some pretense that the owner will not looking for profit, but please do it after the club is successful) and have the decency to put things straight right from the basic. We need an owner who will appoint someone with the knowledge on running a football club as a director/chairman.
(For example, I never understand why Liverpool was never on the market for a good sporting/technical director -people like Palanteo Corvino or Marco Branca-. I understand that football club is run on a different way in England, but that’s what a great owner/chairman should do; reevaluate how things done)
Since the day Hicks and Gillett lied to Liverpool fans that there will be spades, marking the development of the new stadium, we have been searching a way to get rid of them. For once we got it. Hicks and Gillet are selling out. So, rather than bitching about whether O’Neill or Hodgson is a perfect replacement for Rafa, why don’t we keep an eye on the real problem.
Twenty years is a long..long time, and Liverpool has spent it in the wilderness. If we are not careful, we might as well say: “cheers for another twenty”.
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