The current plight of a once great institution and famous football club now lies in near ruins. Beset with financial problems and holding only a piss pot with more holes than a cullender seen lurching from one crisis to the next.
Never in the history of this once elite club, previously recognized as being football’s School of Science with its club motto being Nil Satis Nisi Optimum, have we plumbed the depths that we have descended to today.
The club motto during my time at Liverpool Collegiate School during my youth learning Latin translated to “Nothing but the Best” but sadly is now a million miles from where we stand.
How have we reached such a low point?
The blame game can be directed to any number of events occurring over the past decades since Howard Kendall’s glory era, but undoubtedly since the start of Boys Pen Bill’s reign, we have been subjected to a continuous downward spiral.
Management appointees unsuited to their positions at executive, commercial and managerial level, suspect directors of football, plus an old boy’s coaching plethora have seriously affected how the business should have been run.
Why is this piece titled “Is Our Man Just a Gofer”?
The coming of our Messiah – albeit now seemingly only a gofer – heralded the answer to our prayers as a long downtrodden and ignored fanatical fanbase rejoiced in supposedly new-found wealth. Promises of Champions League football and money to buy the stars needed to achieve a seat at the top table were proclaimed, but never materialized.
Our Messiah, it would seem, now probably only arrived as the gofer for his crooked oligarch paymaster with both being bereft of much football knowledge. He was never concerned about what this club meant to the army of fans who have faithfully served and followed the club since before he was even born. Reckless, ignorant, pigheaded and allowing Bungalow Bill to splash the cash of his hidden money launderer boss with reckless abandonment.
A particular deal brought in a £35 million transfer from a club in a deadline day deal somewhat may reveal oligarch involvement, as what fool would have paid that amount of money for a player who couldn’t command a regular game at his old club and who has since consistently shown why in a blue shirt.
Who knows – except the Oligarch, the Gofer and Bungalow Bill as to why a hurried crap deal like that was ever done. It makes one wonder where and how it was financed, now knowing the Oligarch with his well-known London connections.
Gofers usually do what they are instructed to do without question, with silence being the operative word when carrying out their tasks. Silence has been golden of late as we now suffer the consequences of the gofer trying to save his and his boss’s ass.
Didn’t he recently announce the sale of limited shares to a US company? I guess they have checked him out and are having second thoughts as there have been no further recent announcements. Money for the stadium has probably now run out with investor capital the only avenue to rescue its completion.
The gofer even allowed the shaming of his own supporters with falsehoods spewed from a prat with bloated jowls acting as his mouthpiece but who has never apologized on behalf of the now unproven and not even investigated attack.
There never was any truth in what was claimed, and nobody was investigated, charged, tried or jailed for seemingly such a horrendous attack on a female member of the board. Are Merseyside Police too busy to deal with serious assault or do they know too well a concocted story when it is presented to them?
Him with the hanging jowls and bloated cheeks, who knows all the underhand dealings and the real financial issues that blight our club today, is still raking in a fortune for his dastardly deals. Untouchable as he is, he obviously knows the complete story and refuses to be moved. He has the gofer well and truly by the balls.
The gofer is reportedly an accountant by profession, having somehow amassed a huge fortune, and is the club’s current majority owner by shareholding. Did he suddenly lose his fortune, or did he not have a fortune to begin with?
The oligarch was reportedly involved in interviews for a succession of 5 since sacked managers. Was the gofer receiving instructions from his boss? Who was making the final decisions?
A pointed set of questions, one might think, but many that point to the oligarch being the financial controller who has now lost his wallet and is looking to recover whatever he can. The gofer has all but disappeared from the scene with no comments, no information and no quoted transfer budget.
“Yes, we will buy a striker,” said the gofer as he announced before last season’s transfer window was closed. “Oh, no we won’t,” said the boss to the gofer (and we didn’t get one). [No pun intended related to pantomime and a certain person with a theatrical background…]
Lost in a sea of debt as we move into the new season, even with receipt of £110M recently received from TV revenues unlikely ever to be seen, we as supporters shall move on as always in defiant mood but sadly very much in hope.
The gofer and the goon at the top are probably thinking they have won a battle, but they will never win the war. With a fanbase often reported as being born and not bred, never will we give up the fight to get the unscrupulous, lying, money-laundering brigade out of our club.
Do I know about gofers?
Well, I do know a little about gofers as I’ve spent the past 25 years living and working in Asia. A very wealthy person with an accountancy background (sound familiar?), reputedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars, once approached me and subsequently employed me to run his chemical focused business empire in Asia and China.
I wasn’t the gofer, but he had a relative who knew what the life of a gofer was all about. Dodgy dealings, enormous bank loans, tax evasion, false accountancy, bribery and underhand profit transfer theft was often carried out at his behest. I now see many similarities in how they operated and how a once famous football club is probably being run.
I worked at it for 7 years but eventually walked away having been unable to continue being a part of the continuous shenanigans that were regularly being concocted. It was nice to earn an expat salary with the added benefits that accompany it, but it wasn’t worth going to jail for.
I refused to sign any NDA agreements that were offered to me on submission of my notice to quit and suffered harassment, family threats and even received a warning that I should be very careful when opening my front door. “Empty drums make the loudest noise” as they say… but nothing worse than having my car tires slashed ever transpired.
Luckily, I still had a company credit card during my period of garden leave and so it cost me nothing to have 4 new tires to replace those that had been spoiled!!
Very rich people, and I have met quite a few, often left me the impression that they are immune from guilt, have enormously thick skin, and have very little of a conscience when it comes to ripping people off. Probably not too dissimilar to some we know…
Let’s hope for all of us die-hard followers that what goes around comes back around and we one day get back to being The People’s Club with a well-structured board – their only interest being to make us a proud and sustainable club once again.
Legal Disclaimer: I wish to include herein that any reference to real persons as may be suspected, cited, named or mentioned in this article, being purely an opinion of matters related to the current situation at a football club should be seen as purely fictitious. The comments associated with the article imply no libellous or defamatory intent as to the fictitious characters referred.