5 football projects that fell through

#2 Liverpool

Gillet and Hicks were forced to sell the club

In 2006-07, Liverpool were taken over by American businessmen George Gillet and Tom Hicks. Liverpool finished as runners-up in the Champions League that season and the new owners gave Benitez money to make signings that would help the club push for a league title.

With the backing provided by Gillet and Hicks, Liverpool signed Fernando Torres, Yossi Benayoun Martin Skrtel, Javier Mascherano, Lucas Leiva and Ryan Babel among many others.

Financial trouble was brewing at the club prior to the 2010-11 season. Liverpool sacked Benitez after he fell out with the owners and he was succeeded by Roy Hodgson.

Liverpool sold Mascherano and Benayoun in the summer and Hodgson’s signings like Paul Konchesky, Christian Poulsen, Joe Cole and Milan Jovanovic made very little sense. Despite the money received from the sale of players, Liverpool spent very little in the summer transfer window of 2010 as the club were found to be in £350m debt with losses of £55m.

The bank of Scotland, who were the club’s creditors, took the owners to court to force them into selling the club. The club was sold to present owners, Fenway Sports Group, for £300m. This was far below the valuation between £600m and £1 billion.

The effects of Hodgson’s tenure and the lack of ambition showed by the club under Gillet and Hicks eventually led to the sale of Fernando Torres as well in the window transfer window. The new owners of the club were ambitious and spent over £57m on Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll to replace Torres.

FSG have cleared the debts created by the former owners and recently announced that the club was making profit.