Photo credit: gazlimb on Flickr. This photo is part of Gary’s 96 Tears series, dedicated to those who lost their lives and loved ones in the Hillsborough Disaster. The Shankly Gates, pictured, are located next to the Hillsborough Memorial at Anfield.

The Albert Pub outside Anfield on gameday. 30 January 2010, Liverpool vs. Bolton Wanderers.

Photo credit: jazzebbess on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

In the 48th minute, Benitez turned to face the fourth official after the goal that had put Aston Villa 2-0 up at Anfield, apparently questioning the call of the referee to award the preceding corner-kick. It was a few seconds that captured Rafa’s current mood of limp frustration, as he half-heartedly gesticulated in a rather dubious projection of his team’s failings onto officialdom.  It was almost as unconvincing and lame as Liverpool’s performance, and here it is summing up the surprising state of the Premier League this week.

The moment after

Contemplation

Gesticulation

Under the gaze

The fourth official considers Rafa's point

I can't hear you!

Back to reality, all too soon.

1. Signal Iduna Park (formerly Westfalenstadion), Borussia Dortmund, Germany
Opened 1974
“Two huge end terraces (and they are terraces, with the use of safe standing) that fling noise down at the playing area with deafening intensity.” Good to see it recognised by Evans that safe terracing is the way to go in terms of ensuring our corporate arenas can still have atmosphere, and no surprise a Bundesliga stadium tops the list.

Photo credit: H.Haupt on Flickr

2. San Siro, Internazionale and AC Milan, Italy
Opened 1926
“Lit up, it looks like a spaceship set down in suburban Milan. It could take on the Death Star and win, it’s that impressive.” Difficult to argue with this choice, though the stadium is in need of further renovation according to many visitors.

3. Anfield, Liverpool, England
Opened 1884
“Come those spring nights, the Kop gets a surge of energy and sound pounds down onto the pitch, crushing the weak-willed (Chelsea, Real Madrid, Juventus), recreating Shankly’s “Bastion of Invincibility.”” It doesn’t get much more obvious than Anfield for a British newspaper’s list of top stadia — or more cliched descriptively.

4. BJK İnönü Stadium, Beşiktaş, Turkey
Opened: 1947
“If they get bored, the fans behind one end can look across the Bosphorus to Asia. But their boys don’t get bored, to judge from the row they kick up. Brilliant atmosphere and a setting that’s unbeatable.” Once the home to Galatasaray S.K. and Fenerbahçe S.K as well as Beşiktaş, it’s Pele’s favourite stadium. But it’s about to change substantially, with work set to begin after this season on a new stadium at the same location.

Photo credit: Kartal Bafiler on Flickr

5. Allianz Arena
Opened: 2005
“If you have to build a new stadium, this is the way to do it. The architects who created the home of Bayern and 1860 Munich managed to equal the comfort level of the Emirates but also built in some atmosphere.” The only stadium built since the 1970s in the list, we featured the Allianz Arena here just recently — and I still wonder a little about the coldness of the design inside, despite the warmth of the colour-changing facade.

Photo credit: MrTopf on Flickr

6. Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain
Opened 1947
“The Nou Camp’s evil twin. Real Madrid’s palatial home does everything better than its Catalan counterpart except, perhaps, big-game atmosphere. But it’s a close-run thing. Effortlessly stylish, the place has the easy charm of a brilliantly successful tycoon whose career has been underpinned by a ruthless streak. Franco would feel right at home.” A pretty clumsy way to end a compliment there.

Photo credit: Jeroen! on Flickr

7. La Bombonera, Boca Juniors, Argentina
Opened 1940
“There can be no such thing as health and safety inspectors in Argentina: if there were, Boca Juniors’ ground would be closed in a heartbeat. Three sides of the stadium are traditional sloping seating areas but the fourth, a vertical stand, makes the Bombonera a design classic.” The Chocolate Box is the obvious choice as the sole non-European selection — an obvious deficiency in this list.

Photo credit: #Hernan# on Flickr

8. Stadionul Dinamo, Dinamo Bucharest, Romania
Opened 1952
“A running track is normally enough to destroy a stadium’s credibility. However, Dynamo Bucharest’s ground is a masterpiece of Cold War chic. You are greeted by Stalinist statues before arriving at a sunken bowl. A wide staircase behind the goal takes you pitchside — you can imagine a baby’s pram rattling down the stairs — and the closest thing to executive boxes are the balconies of neighbouring tower blocks.” A curious choice in an attempt to give a nod to Eastern Europe perhaps, it’s hard to see what could give it a nod above the Nou Camp besides “Cold War chic” — I’m sure somewhere, Nicolae Ceauşescu is chuffed.

Photo credit: Molkover on Flickr

9. Nou Camp, Barcelona, Spain
Opened 1957
“Depending on the match, this place could easily end up on the list of worst stadiums. When it’s dull, it’s deathly. But on nights when Barça fans are hurling pigs’ heads at Luis Figo, it’s electric. The Cathedral of Catalan identity — even if the locals queue up to sell their tickets to tourists. . .It’s a shame the Champions League has made visits to places like this commonplace.” It’s hard to imagine Camp Nou appearing on the list of the worst anything, but the jaded Mr. Evans has apparently been there too many times — such a pity for him!

Photo credit: Missha on Flickr

10, Craven Cottage, Fulham, England
Opened 1896
“In the era of identikit bowls, the ramshackle little ground on the banks of the Thames is like a throwback to a different age. It’s a genteel place, but it feels right.” And the final choice takes us back to the nineteenth century, which is not a bad way to end such a list.

Photo credit: nicksarebi on Flickr

What are your thoughts on the list?  What stadiums has Evans missed that simply had to be on this list?

So it will cost them a Torres and a half every year, and don’t expect ticket prices to be anything short of extortionate in the coming years.

Liverpool fans often talk about bleeding red, and the owners will need to squeeze every last dollar out of them to keep the club solvent.

All just another reminder of why leveraged takeovers in football are a really bad idea for football.

Photo credit: ah zim

Only 41, 989 more than our last home league game then.

About an hour and a half before kick-off, whilst in the Flat Iron pub a short walk down from the Anfield Road away end, one of my regular associates, Chris, suggested that he didn’t feel any different than prior to any normal big-day-out away game; before an Eastbourne; a Lewes; a Bath City or such. In the pub, with chums, looking forward to the game – always fantastic. After all, you’ve never lost at this point of any Saturday. I felt the same, the difference being that I don’t usually spend nine whole days before going to, I dunno, Sutton, feeling at once anxious, giddy and consumed by belly fizz.

This is not to say that we did not appreciate the enormity of the occasion, but we’re tossing out these BIGGEST! GAME! EVER!’s like mints at a Halitosis Anonymous blue-cheese and cigars away-day at the minute; we barely get a chance to allow one to sink in, before another comes along. Just a week and a half to enjoy beating, quite comfortably I might add, the side currently romping away at the top of League One? It’s not bloody good enough I tells ya! Who might I complain to?

The walk from the Flat Iron made all the difference. Suddenly I’m happening upon people I haven’t seen in over a decade, since my college days; upon a friend who lives in Blackpool, here with his sister and fiancé who have come up from Havant for the day. Joke as we regulars might about daytrippers and Johnny-Come-Latelys, but when it comes down to it, I am delighted to see so many people excited about, and indeed present at, a Havant & Waterlooville game.

A great many will not have been to a game before, and of those, a fair majority will probably never do so again, but it certainly can’t hurt to have 6,000 people taking an interest. Up until a month ago, people asking who I supported would usually follow my answer with an incredulous exclamation. Usually ‘Who?’ sometimes ‘where?’, and once or twice ‘Why?’ Of course, given our double-teamed moniker, the clever-clever retort would be ‘Which?’ However, l reckon I’ll be waiting a long time on that one, or indeed to hear again any of the others as unless I talk to someone that’s been living beneath a rock that’s underneath a big sheet of thick tarpaulin, below an ever bigger rock, I reckon they’ll have a fair idea. “Ah yes, the famous Havant ‘Looville – you were going to Wem-ber-lee, is that right?”. Yes. Yes it i

Read the rest here.

The essential problem with the Americans’ takeover was that, like that of the Glazers at Manchester United, it was funded by hundreds of millions of borrowed pounds and not by the capital of the new owners.

This puts a massive burden on the club to pay off the interest (running into tens of millions a year) by squeezing as much revenue as possible out of the club (hence United fans are still protesting against the Glazers’ debt-financed takeover, despite success on the field), with the debt hanging over it like an executioner’s blade. Should the club ever stumble on the pitch, with a huge portion of revenue dependent on Champions League qualification, a Leeds-style tumble is not inconceivable.

At best, transfer spending is cut and supporters are charged ever more to pay the debt. And with the global credit crunch hitting when Hicks and Gillett were looking to refinance their debt recently, conflict with manager Rafa Benitz and supporters over the availability of transfer funds ensued and plans to build a new stadium were massively downgraded.

The debt also signals that the owners are not in it for the long-haul — they’re there make a quick buck, banking on the rising value of the elite Premier League teams for a sale a couple of years down the road. A healthier business model is that of Randy Lerner at Villa, who did not borrow heavily and has won over fans who know he plans to stick around. The same can even be said, for all that he’s hardly a good thing for football in general, about Roman Abramovich at Chelsea.

The question is, are Dubai International Capital in the Glazer-mode or the Lerner-mode? Writing in The Times, Siobhan Kennedy argues that as DIC’s boss Sameer Al Ansari is a long-time Liverpool fan, he “is leading from the heart, not the head.” Yet he also reports that DIC’s investment model is essentially the same as the Glazers or Hicks/Gilletts, based on debt financing and a quick sale:

The investment arm of DIC is the same as any other private equity firm, such as Blackstone, KKR, or Permira, which ran into trouble last year over its acquisition of the AA. Private equity firms acquire companies using small amounts of their own cash and lots of debt. They then push through a restructuring or refocusing of the company and pay themselves a dividend once the company’s fortunes have turned around. After an investment period of about three to five years, private equity firms then sell or float the company if it is private.

Even if Al Ansari is the biggest Liverpool fan in the world, it wouldn’t matter if the purchase is debt-financed: they’ll still have the interest payments to deal with, and they’ll still be looking to turn it around and sell it in a few years to turn a profit. That is not good for the club’s long-term stability.

Kennedy then goes on to make what he seems to think is a positive comparison of Al Ansari to Joel Glazer, apparently unaware all the Glazers are despised by an increasingly vocal and unhappy portion of the Man Utd fanbase.

Having been educated at Liverpool University School of Law, Al Ansari is a big Liverpool fan and goes to Anfield several times a season, in the same way that Malcolm Glazer’s son, Joel, had a passion for Manchester United. How better to satisfy that passion than buying the club? It worked for Glazer and Al Ansari thinks it can work for him, too.

Like Glazer, Al Ansari knows the marketing power of Liverpool is huge and he wants to find a way to turn that appeal into profits. George Gillett Jr, the Liverpool co-owner, said in February 2007 that the Liverpool “brand” needed to be promoted in the Far East. “Liverpool is the No 1 brand in Europe. If you go to the Far East, Man Utd has historically been the No 1 brand, Chelsea has recently become popular,” he said.

DIC was established in 2004, and already has a record of buying a famous British brand and selling it on. In 2005, they purchased the Tussauds Group, selling it on two years later — though they’ve retained a 20% share in the new ownership. One imagines this is the kind of plan Al Ansari has in mind for Liverpool.

The change in the media and fans’ perspective on DIC, as if they are some sort of philanthropic saviours, is remarkable. When they were first mooted as interested in Liverpool in 2006, a banker close to DIC said that “These guys are not after trophy assets. They buy and sell businesses for pure commercial reasons. They have proper investment objectives.” Is that likely to have changed, especially given the asking price has apparently doubled?

Photo credit: 1) Getty Images. See full Liverpool protest photo gallery at the Fanhouse. 2) The Observer, Action Images.

The Fanhouse, on the ball as ever, has already got a photo gallery of the protests up, so head over there to see them all (one reads “U messed up Vietnam, u messed up Iraq! Don’t mess with Scousers”).

Again, we mentioned before why we think some American owners do better than others with the fans, but whether they’ll leave soon continues to depend on events out of their control, including the global credit crunch and how deep into their pockets prospective owners Dubai International Capital want to dig.