Liverpool Sale May Be Agreed By EPL Start, Claims Kirdi Broker

The broker for Yahya Kirdi’s bid to buy 18-time English soccer champion Liverpool said the Syrian businessman and his investment group want to agree on a deal before the Reds open their Premier League campaign Aug. 15.
The sale to end the three-year ownership of Americans George Gillett and Tom Hicks only requires signatures to be completed, said Dan Diamond, president of Montreal-based GameDay Leadership Management Consultants Inc.
“We are prepared to take as long as it takes to get the deal done properly but all the participants would be pleased if we could have it place for Liverpool’s home English Premier League opener against Arsenal,” Diamond said last night in a telephone interview.
Diamond said U.K. press reports that his group’s approach was being used to bid up other offers are inaccurate. In April, the Daily Mirror said talks between Kirdi and Liverpool’s owners were alleged to be at an “advanced stage,” although nothing materialized on that occasion.
“We’ve been trying to get the deal done since October,” Diamond said, adding that Gillett and Hicks would “walk away with a profit.”
Diamond said Kirdi is negotiating directly with the owners, not with Liverpool Chairman Martin Broughton or Barclays Capital, who are looking for a buyer. He said Kirdi’s group had showed proof of funding, and the bid wasn’t debt-financed.
He declined to reveal the identity of the Middle Eastern and Canadian investors backing Kirdi’s bid, or the purchase price the group claims to have agreed with Gillett and Hicks.
Jonathon Brill, a spokesman for Liverpool’s owners, declined to comment.
Club Debt
Diamond issued a press release yesterday, saying the new investors would clear the club’s 237 million-pound ($376 million) debt with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Wachovia Corp. The club’s parent company has net debt of 351 million pounds.
Separately, Hong Kong-based investor Kenny Huang said yesterday that he’s registered an interest in investing in Liverpool although he hasn’t made a formal bid. Broughton has said there have been several bids.
Liverpool today plays the second match of its two-game Europa League qualifier with Macedonia’s FK Rabotnicki. The five-time European champion is playing in Europe’s second-tier competition after failing to reach the Champions League. The club’s seventh-place Premier League finish in 2009-10 was its worst in 11 years.