Henry: Liverpool still paying price of past
Reuters - Thursday 16 August 2012, 09:30
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.
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."