David Maddock at The Mirror reports on yesterday’s news that Liverpool had agreed a lucrative four year £80million sponsorship deal with investment bankers Standard Charter, was a welcome fillip for the club who have struggled to match the spending power of many of their close rivals during the off season. Despite claims by some critics that the majority of this money will go towards servicing the debt incurred by owners Tom Hicks and George Gillette Jnr from their takeover and running of the club since, new managing director at Anfield, Christian Purslow, rejected such notions stating;
“This is a statement of intent about our desire to improve and invest in our football team – we want to be the best in the world, and that is what we are about,” Purslow explained.
“I want us to be the best football team in the world and there is a pretty clear link between being the best team and having the best performance off the field. That has not been our position, historically, but there is no reason why, going forward we cannot be the biggest, best-run and most commercially successful football club in the world.
“The fans will be right to ask where the money will go from this deal, and they’ll be pleased and relieved to know that Liverpool’s revenues, profits and income is the club’s.
“It stays in the club, it doesn’t go out of the club, it’s job is to support our football team and so I can assure you, as we drive forward our turnover, we will invest a sensible element of that in our wage bill and we will invest a sensible level of our profits in our transfers and none of those monies go anywhere other than into the development of the club.”
Speculation is mounting that manager Rafa Benitez will have a healthy war chest to spend on players during the January transfer window, which will no doubt lead to frenzied speculation over potential recruits. Benitez may well decide to reopen negotiations with former club Valencia, with whom it was rumoured he had agreed a deal with in the summer for midfielder David Silva, only to be stymied by a lack of finance from Anfield to secure the deal for the Spanish midfielder.
Will having the extra cash generated by the new deal mean Liverpool can now start to match the spending of some of their rivals, or are they doomed to have a small time mentality under their current owners?
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