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In 2019, the ECHO's Reds correspondent Paul Gorst spoke to two of the solicitors who worked on the deal to ensure FSG walked out of court as the new owners of Liverpool Football Club.

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This article first appeared online on October 15, 2019.



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John Henry might have been talking about the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox as he sat in Anfield's Legends Lounge on October 16 2010, but his words would not sound out of place if he reiterated them this week as principal owner of Liverpool Football Club.

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"We've known in the last nine years that, every morning when we get up, what we do impacts on millions of people's lives."

It's been 14 years since Fenway Sports Group rescued the Reds from the vice grip of the detested Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Fourteen years since a triumphant Martin Broughton and Christian Purslow stood on the steps of the High Court, celebrating a cup final victory for the "home team" - the phrase they referred to themselves as during their attempts to heave Hicks and Gillett out of a position they should never have been allowed to reside in.

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"I am elated - elated," said Purslow.

The Royal Bank of Scotland had loaned Hicks and Gillett £300m to buy the then 18-time champions of England in 2007 and they wanted the sizable sum back.

Broughton was on board to find a buyer for the club as the walls came falling down around the American owners.

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FSG - who were then known as New England Sports Ventures - were sounded out before a deal was dramatically pushed through against the wishes of Hicks and Gillett, who tried and tried to block the sale with injunction attempts in London and America and a $1billion legal claim at the 11th hour.

"An epic swindle," Hicks would later call it.

The ECHO spoke to two of the legal experts from Slaughter and May who helped drive out Hicks and Gillett and usher in the FSG era.

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“It was a bit like the thing in Terminator 2 where you keep killing it and then it comes back to life and at you from a different angle,” says Mark Zerdin, a partner who presided over the specifics of an exhausting week that ended with the sale of Liverpool Football Club.

“Hicks and Gillett just kept bringing more and more lawsuits and tried to get all kinds of injunctions and none of them had any merit.

It is not often you come out of court to bus loads of supporters cheering, it was an amazing time.

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“There wasn’t a huge amount of sleep going on around that time, by the Friday, which would have been the 8th, we had applied to the English court for an injunction, just so [Hicks and Gillett] wouldn’t try anything else, because what kicked it all off was they were about to vote on the deal with the two offers on the table.

"The problem from Hicks and Gillett’s perspective with both of those was that [the offers] were enough to pay off the debts for the club but didn’t give them anything for their shares.

We chose which bid to go with because it was the most credible, they had the money and could get a deal done.

“There were then decisions on how to respond to all the different legal actions [from Hicks and Gillett].

Hundreds of jubilant Liverpool supporters celebrated outside the High Court as a new dawn approached for their football club.

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But if the emotion of the fanbase was laid bare on the streets of the capital, what was the feeling on the inside, from the people who had worked tirelessly to secure the right outcome?

Owner of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, and new owner of Liverpool Football Club, John W.