Reds' risky business
The Liverpool manager, Rafael Benítez, made a net profit in the transfer market of £14.3m in the 12 months to 31 July last year and had added another £5.8m to that by the end of January. But the club still managed to make a pre-tax (and, crucially, interest) loss of £5.7m in 2007/8. The co-owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks, have raised their investment in the club through loans from their Cayman Islands-based investment vehicle to a total of at least £70m (don't weep for them, though: they are charging handsome interest). Some £21m of that, injected between last July and this February, was "to provide for player trading arrangements". But, even before the £17.5m deal for Glen Johnson, existing transfer-market obligations were already apparently £15m. Now Liverpool have to pay down £60m of their £350.5m loans to Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia in pretty short order. Can the multimillion-pound saving associated with not having to pay up Xabi Alonso's contract after he put in writing his transfer request been coincidence? More sales will surely follow.
