Tom Hicks & George Gillett were not the ‘preferred bidder’ for Liverpool – former chief executive Rick Parry

Rick Parry – Liverpool’s cheif executive (PA)

Related Links

Teams

Former Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry admits that George Gillett and Tom Hicks were not the first choice when he helped sell the club to the pair in 2007.

Parry, along with then chairman and owner David Moores, chose to sell the club to the American duo despite interest from DIC (Dubai International Capital), but Parry insists that the Middle East bidders quit talks and left Hicks and Gillett as the only serious option.

“It wasn’t a case of us rejecting Dubai, they were the preferred bidder but they walked away,” Parry told the London Evening Standard.

The controversial Americans reluctantly lost control of the club in 2010 after the board accepted the offer of FSG (Fenway Sports Group) in a move that Hicks described as “an epic swindle”.

Parry believes the ownership under of the duo was a result of a poor relationship between the two, which filtered down throughout the club, but despite the fans’ fierce opposition to the pair he believes that the era of Hicks and Gillett wasn’t a total disaster.

“I think one of the fundamental problems was that they actually didn’t get on terribly well with each other,” he said.

“Don’t forget and certainly until I left – which was 2009 – we were second in the league.

“The business plan was a net spend of £20m on players and they’d over-delivered on that.

“They took us pretty close to winning the Premier League in 2008-2009, within four points of Manchester United with a huge points total.”

Parry remained in his role until 2009 to oversee the transition between owners and he feels that by the time he left his role the owners had already decided to sell the club.

He added: “So it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Then, in 2009, for whatever reason, there didn’t appear to be any net spend at all on the players.

“By which time they clearly realised that they probably needed to sell completely.”

Liverpool sacked manager Rafael Benitez after the 2009-2010 season following a breakdown in his relationship with the board and a disappointing seventh-placed finish in the league.

Despite the Spaniard’s reported hostile relationship with the Liverpool hierarchy, Parry insists that he shares a good relationship with the former Valencia boss.

“You don’t get into the business if you want people who are easy,” he added.

“You want people who are winners. He’s very demanding and he’s a perfectionist, but I’m still friendly with Rafael.”