Rafa Benitez has taken time out to explain to the fans why he has rejected the new contract offered to him by Liverpool Football Club.
As maintained by KOPTALK for some time, the boss is allegedly unhappy with his "dithering" chief executive Rick Parry when it comes to working on transfers. Rafa wants more control to ensure he lands the players he wants, especially after last summer's farce with Gareth Barry.
Player's contracts have still been allowed to run down despite promises that players would not be allowed to run their contracts down to less than 2-years. As things currently stand the boss could lose Daniel Agger for as little as £7.5million to AC Milan as a result.
It's not just first team matters though. Rafa also wants more of a say in how the Academy is run.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo today, Rafa said: "My relationship with the owners is better than people think. I have regular contact with them and especially with Tom Hicks who has always been very supportive.
"The talks between my agent and the advisers of the owners have been very positive and friendly and our differences are about my responsibilities.
"The owners feel that the manager's decisions need to be subject to the chief executive but I know that I am subject to results and to our fans and they are the best judges I will ever have.
"I have a lot of experience in football at different clubs and if you do not have a technical director and you are the manager you have to have control of the football decisions. But always within the confines of a budget which is controlled by the owners and the club.
"In this scenario the manager knows the amount money he has available to him and can decide how much he should spend on each player according to the needs of the team.
"The only person who can decide the value of a player to his squad is the manager because he knows what elements are needed to improve the squad.
"I believe the academy is a very important part of the future of the club. The length of the contract was already agreed and this showed my long term commitment to the club.
"I know the academies of Ajax, Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and Valencia and they are producing players regularly.
"The way the system works there means the manager has an input into development and I think this could be the way forward here and we would hope that this would help us make better use of local talent.
"I have to say again that this is not about financial gain. This is not a way to get more money.
"This is solely about being allowed to manage Liverpool Football Club to the best of my abilities as I see them.
"I believe that this club has the potential to improve and I just want to be able to help this to happen.
"I will continue to do my job as manager and concentrate on the thing that our fans want me to focus on – winning trophies for them.
"From the first day I came to the club I have only ever given 100% and I will continue to do this.
"We have a very important game coming up against Everton on Monday night and now I just want to be able to concentrate only on this."
