Owner John Henry says Liverpool face a huge financial challenge to compete with the very  best as the English Premier League side continues to pay the price for the failings of the previous regime.
best as the English Premier League side continues to pay the price for the failings of the previous regime.
Henry  told British media on Thursday that the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) were  committed to restoring the Reds to the top of the English game but  warned not to expect a change of fortunes as rapid as the one achieved  with the Boston Red Sox.
FSG acquired the Major League Baseball team in 2002 and within two years, they ended an 86-year wait to win the World Series.
They  completed their Anfield takeover in October 2010, bringing to an end  the acrimonious reign of fellow Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
"The  best analogy is that you can't turn an ocean liner around like you can  turn a speedboat," said Henry, whose consortium paid 300 million pounds  for the club when they were on the brink of administration.
"When you look at the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United, Liverpool isn't holding up its side of the rivalry.
"That  is the way it was with the Red Sox and the [New York] Yankees," he  added. "The Yankees were just completely dominant when we arrived.
"We  knew we could never be on an equal footing financially with the  Yankees. But we had to do everything in our power to get on a level  footing with them on the playing field.
"That was a tremendous challenge. You could say Liverpool is an even bigger challenge than the Red Sox."
WAGE BILL
Liverpool,  who won the last of their 18 English titles in 1990, have finished  sixth and eighth in the Premier League over the past two seasons.
Principal  Owner Henry and Chairman Tom Werner said transforming the club's  fortunes would take time, with a squad in need of strengthening and an  inflated wage bill to reduce.
"We  looked at how the situation was financially, with the player contracts  and the youth system," Henry said. "The further we went into it, the  more sobered we were.
"Looking  back at the day we bought Liverpool, I was trying to make a point then  about how much of a challenge it was going to be because of the issues  we inherited.
"We  had a lack of depth in the squad and some really high payrolls. We also  had issues with the age of the players and so forth. We knew it was  going to be very difficult.
Werner promised FSG were serious about building for the future.
"We  feel that we have work to do," he said. "We feel that we are behind -  but we are on it. Do we feel that it is possible to get on a level with  [the top European] clubs? Absolutely.
"We can close that gap and compete at the very highest level. Absolutely."
0 Comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
