真的，很悲哀。

In recent times, businesses infiltrate into almost every imaginable aspect, be it public transport, public utilities and even sports. As long as the potential to earn is present, there will be businessmen involved. Some businessmen 放长线钓大鱼, investing effort to grow their purchase, while some are more opportunistic, looking for bargains and plan to sell them away to make some money.

When sports meets business, it’s passion meets money. These days, it’s not news that global clubs are owned by billionaires or some multi-million group. Owning these clubs seems to be a million/billionaire’s trend, with lots of money being poured in (eg Chelski and Man City). For some, it is an investment, while for others, it’s a toy. Is this a healthy trend? If you ask a Chelski or Man City fan, of course, he will be happy. After all, loaded with money, these clubs started to play fantasy football, throwing money around to buy the “best” players. But if ask a LFC or ManU fan, his response will be on the other end of the spectrum. As a football fan and someone who has some “brushes” with company law before having studied the subject in school, I looked at the recent off-pitch development of LFC with interest, albeit with sadness. Once a mighty all-conquering club, it has now been reduced to having its future hinges on the boardroom spat.

Cutting the long story short, the Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillet borrowed to buy LFC, but were unable to repay the loan and thus need to refinance. In order to refinance, they relinquished their powers to change the board of directors, something which they tried to do to block a sale of the club that was trying to take place before the loan repayment deadline. The English Courts reiterated that as it was written in the LFC’s articles. Just when everyone thought the sale would go through, the owners sought an injunction and damages through the Texan courts. Pretty “exciting”, end-to-end action huh. The injunction suit was littered with “interesting” facts too, revealing a “grand conspiracy”, in which “the Director Defendants were acting merely as pawns of RBS”. “In furtherance of this grand conspiracy, on information and belief, RBS has improperly used its influence as the club’s creditor and as a worldwide banking leader to prevent any transaction that would permit Messrs. Hicks and Gillett to recover any of their initial investment in the club, much less share in the substantial appreciation in the value of Liverpool FC that their investments have created.” I’m not aware of any “substantial appreciation in the value of Liverpool FC that their investments have created”, apart of increased revenue streams from non-football avenues and perhaps Fernando Torres (who has been very out-of-sorts recently), with faltering league standings and the inability to make into the Champions League this season and possibly any European competition in the next season. Though LFC is sold, the battle seems to continue in the near future with the old American owners suing for damages.

And the battle does not confine to the top only, with supporters looking at the possibility to sue the old owners in a civil court. It’s really sad to see a football club fighting for survival off-pitch, instead of on-pitch. Anyway, they have been more than pathetic on pitch; maybe the off-pitch “victory” provides more comfort than watching what happened on the pitch. With that said, actually it’s the on-pitch performances that matter; if the performances on the pitch are good enough, it can cover up for the off-pitch troubles; however vice versa does not work.