Have a Good NEWS

• Liverpool chairman expects £300m deal next week
• Profile: prospective new owner John W Henry
• Timeline: Life under Tom Hicks and George Gillett
• Comment below or email Steve Busfield or on Twitter

2.10pm: On the subject of the coming together of the "national sports" of the US and England, the BBC has "When baseball meets football". Two great links in that piece:

• Henry and his partners, Werner and Lucchino were declared Best Owners in Baseball by Sports Illustrated in 2009

• Earlier this week the Red Sox owners took out a full page advert apologising for missing out on the play-offs

1.57pm: Back on the Liverpool Red Sox theme, Eddie Smithwick emails:

1.35pm: It hasn't yet been suggested that Liverpool might become Liverpool Red Sox, and surely the potential new owners would be foolish to even contemplate it, but an email from John Penton points out:

"Liverpool, and Anfield in particular, is a hotbed of English Baseball. There is a bar, not too far from Anfield , called First Base that is full of baseball memorabilia. Take a look at the English Baseball Association website and, if you look under 'History', you will see there is even a suggestion that Liverpool seamen brought the game to the USA. Baseball is coming home!!!!!!!"

1.31pm: A very useful Q&A from the Press Association tackles some of the complicated financial questions:

Q. Why are Hicks and Gillett so against the offer?
A. They believe the price of £300million grossly under-values the club - and because they would each take a massive financial hit.
Question: But the £ 300million seems a lot of money - ISN 'T, which is much more than they paid for the club in 2007?
A. Yes, they paid £219million, funded entirely by bank loans, but since then the debt has swelled due to interest and other fees to £280million, and they have invested £144.4million into Kop Holdings via a company registered in the Cayman Islands, which was then lent to Liverpool.
Q. What would Hicks and Gillett will be left if £ 300million buyout goes ahead?
A. ?? 200million will be used to repay the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia debt. RBS is likely to leave about ?? 30 million of debt as a loan for the new owners. Only after all other creditors are paid not to use for cash to Hicks and Gillett to ?? 144.4million loan they put
Q. How about the penalties that Hicks and Gillett have created with RBS?
A. They total around £45million but they would no doubt be subject to legal challenges too.
Q: So, what's the size of losses Hicks and Gillett is considering?
A. A sizeable one, even as much as £100million.

1.14pm: Video interview with Barry Glendenning on the sale of Liverpool: 'They're only interested in making a huge profit'

12.28pm:Recall events of the past few hours in the life of Liverpool:

• The board of Liverpool FC has agreed to sell the club to the US owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. In a statement on its website, Liverpool said it had accepted a bid from New England Sports Ventures (NESV), which owns the US baseball team, in defiance of the club's American owners. 9.58am: The deal with New England Sports Ventures would value Liverpool FC at about £300m.

• However, any deal will be subject to a protracted legal battle after the club's owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett attempted to sack the chairman, Martin BroughtonAnd two other council members who were willing to accept the offer NESV.

• In response, an official statement from the club said the deal had gone through. The club accused the American duo of opposing the offer because the bid would not give them enough profit for their shares.

• In a Q&A on the Liverpool FC website, chairman Broughton says he is confident the deal will go through. But the sale will be subject to a court hearing that the board is acting legally. Broughton said: "Essentially when I took the role they (Hicks and Gillett) gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings."

• More information about the prospects of new owner John Henry W in this profile.

• David Conn explains what might happen next, and the crucial role is played by the Royal Bank of Scotland, who gave Liverpool Oct. 15 deadline to repay debts.

• Timeline of life under Hicks and Gillett

12.31pm: "Liverpool FC sale could take weeks to complete", say lawyers, reports Owen Gibson.

Daniel Liptrott, partner at Eversheds, says:

The usual maxim in selling anything is that it would be the owners of an asset that would need to approve the sale of it. However, the waters become muddied when other stakeholders are involved, like the debt providers in the LFC situation.

At the very core of this dispute each director, three of which are not owners and two of which are shareholders, has to consider their duties as a director and whether they are being properly discharged. Another consideration will be the rights that have been given to the lenders over a number of re-financings, as well as how the LFC group of companies is structured, and as a result what rights have been given up by the owners.

When the chairman, Martin Broughton, was brought in at the behest of RBS, the bank â€" owed £237m â€" ensured that the balance of power on the board resided with Broughton, the managing director, Christian Purslow, and the commercial director, Ian Ayre.

They have argued that they have a duty to act in the best interests of the company and the principal lenders, while Gillett and Hicks have so far blocked any sale that does not return a substantial profit on their original investment.

12.20pm: So, Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton clearly thinks that the owners are acting unconstitutionally and that the sale will go through. He also has some words about the potential/likely/possible new owners:

Why, in your opinion, is New England Sports Ventures the right new owner for Liverpool Football Club?

I think both of them would have been excellent new owners. New England have a lot of experience in developing, investing in and taking Boston Red Sox - as the closest parallel - from being a club with a wonderful history, a wonderful tradition that had lost the winning way, and bringing it back to being a winner. Their commitment to winning is what it's all about there and they've extended it from Boston Red Sox to Nascar and other things, but Red Sox is the main one.

Debt burden will completely remove it?

To all intents and purposes, yes. All of the acquisition debt that was involved in the current owners acquisition will be removed completely. We'll still have what we call normal working capital debt and there's a facility there for the new stadium which will remain in place, but to all intents and purposes all the major debt that has been causing our problem has been paid off.

Is there a commitment from them to progress the new stadium project?

Yes, there's definitely a commitment to invest in a stadium and we will finish up with a 60,000+ seater stadium. Where they haven't finalised their view is whether that should be the new stadium or whether there are still opportunities to build at Anfield itself. They have done both. The people involved have built the new stadium at Baltimore Orioles, for example, and at Fenway Park they looked at the two options and decided that actually redevelopment with all of the tradition was better than a new stadium. So they have done both, they are committed to looking at both very professionally and seeing which is the best option, but there will be stadium development.

12.14pm: Liverpool FC's official website now has a Q&A with Liverpool FC Chairman Martin Broughton on the takeover.Here are some key elements of that Q & A:

Can you explain exactly what the situation is right now?

Last night fans read a statement on the official website claiming that the owners had sought to remove Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre from the Board. What was the reasoning behind this and were the owners successful?

The court will ultimately decide whether the owners were successful. The reasoning behind it was that the owners felt we were reviewing two bids which they considered undervalued the club and therefore they wished to remove Christian and Ian and replace them with Mack Hicks, who is Tom's son, and Lori McCutcheon, who also works with him.

Just to clarify, what needs to happen now for the sale to be finalised?

The key thing is the court case. We need to go to the court to get a declaratory judgement, which is for the court to declare that we did act validly in completing the sale agreement, and then the buyers can complete the sale. We have to get Premier League approval and I'm certain that's not going to be an issue. There are one or two minor things like that but the key issue is the court, which should meet I would think next week sometime. That is the most likely time, in short order.

Can the owners block the sale of LFC to New England Sports Ventures?

Well, we have to win the court case. So effectively yes, if they win the court case they can block the sale. But then we may have one or two other thoughts in mind as well.

Could the sale process be dragged through the courts for months before a resolution is reached?

No, I don't think so. We should get a declaratory judgement I would have thought probably by the end of next week, in short order. There is an appeal process but that is also very fast.

12:09 PM: A lot of debate below the line appears to be about whether Liverpool will/should/might be docked points should they go into administration. PA quotes sources saying that Liverpool will NOT be docked points. But that is unofficial at the moment.

12.03pm: StreetStories.com, which is, it says, "the premier online location covering managed futures, hedge funds, commodity trading advisors (CTAs) and the great market wizard traders of the last 40 years", has interesting background on John W Henry's glory years as a fund manager. In 1992 Henry was Number 6 in the Financial World: Wall Street 100:

11.54am: Reader Alex Gale offers this theory via email:

What if this bid acceptance/refusal is a ruse? Due to all the publicity it is pretty much official that, should the club revert to ownership by RBS, they will sell it at probably much the same price as the bid to the Red Sox chap. This in turn smokes out any other potential interest, god knows where from, most likely Thailand or a Gulf State, even China and they are forced to make a bid before the bank takes ownership. The price goes up and the two yanks come away having at least covered their investment cost…

11.38am: I think it might be worth repeating from a piece elsewhere, David Conn trying to explain what may happen from here:

As for what happens next in this endgame being played by Broughton, Purslow and Ayre against the bank deadline of 15 October, it is still in flux. Hicks and Gillett sought to remove Purslow and Ayre yesterday to prevent the three, as a majority, approving a sale of the club to John W Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, or another, unnamed, Asian buyer. Neither, apparently, would have delivered a personal payday to the Americans. The statement said: "This matter is now subject to legal review."

The power, everybody knows, rests with RBS, the collapsed bank now 84% owned by the British taxpayer who bailed it out. Yet the last thing the bank wants is to be in charge of a football club as high-profile, crisis-hit and emotionally volatile as Liverpool. All along, the possibility most pondered has been for RBS to reclaim the club on 15 October, if Hicks and Gillett do not pay up, with a buyer lined up for the bank immediately to sell to.

There are many twists lying in wait before so clinical a solution can be orchestrated, especially with the club's three directors having decided to make no secret of their opposition to Hicks and Gillett.

11:34 am: Interestingly, the version with the Liverpool Echo 'of the story reads: "Liverpool have sold in the New England Sports Ventures "

It is not until the final paragraph that the story adds: "The statement also said the sale is conditional on Premier League approval, as well as resolution of the boardroom dispute and other matters."

11.26am: Checking the comments below the line, I thought this was interesting post from New-York reader therentedhat:

Henry's a good owner, but he has changed Fenway to help it make more money for the team, while not building a new stadium, primarily because Red Sox fans won't allow it...

I put it to you this way. I was talking to an friend of mine who has a fairly superficial understanding of the football...

He asked me, "A" Liverpool? "

I respond, "They are broke. They have Gerrard and a couple of other players, but they're broke."

"Broke, how that possible?"

"They are co-owned by the owner of the Texas Rangers and the owner of the Montreal Candians."

"Oh shit."

Pop those corks on the Merseyside tonight. You've earned it with all that marching and sign making and that.

The Sox got destroyed by injuries this season and still were in it to the 2nd to last Sunday of the season. If the Sox had Youk and Pedoria they would have won close to a hundred games this year.

11.06am: Here is the reaction from some Liverpool fans websites. Barry Glendenning also considers some of the other views (not necessarily that the brand Red):

On Twitter, Manchester United fan and Sky television presenter Eamonn Holmes.

10:49 am: US tycoons George Gillett and Tom Hicks offered £435m to buy Liverpool in early 2007 and when the deal went through it valued the club at £219m. The plan was to build a new stadium too, but a year later the pair were barely speaking to each other. The relationship with the supporters deteriorated fast, with Tom Hicks Jr, a board member, responding to an email from a fan with a foul-mouthed tirade

This year a string of possible deals have been touted, including Chinese investor Kenny Huang, a consortium of Middle East investors and private equity firm Blackstone.

And then, in September, Hicks decided to try to retain control, and he attempted to refinance the £237m debt to the Royal Bank of Scotland. If unable to find fresh credit, the Texan could be forced to relinquish his investment on October 15. With this date looming, and £60m penalty charge a distinct possibility, comes the revelation of John W Henry's bid.

10.34am: Liverpool will not be docked points if it goes into administration, according to Press Association sources. The PA story says:

There have been suggestions that if Tom Hicks and George Gillett block a £300million takeover for the club by New England Sports Ventures, owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, then their holding company would be put into administration by the Royal Bank of Scotland over their unpaid £280million debts.

That would not lead to an automatic points deduction for the Reds however - the Premier League have clarified the rules regarding parent companies so that if the club itself is a fully solvent entity - as Liverpool is - then the penalty clause should not apply.

Source Premier League told the Press Association Sports: "The purpose of the rules in the first place to capture the clubs who have been in bankruptcy is clearly not the case with Liverpool Football Club .."

10:11 am: So, who is the man who now wants to take over Liverpool FC? John Henry W made his fortune in hedge funds before using it to indulge his sporting interests, with the Boston Red Sox baseball team and in NASCAR, the huge American motorsport series. According to this profile, his personal fortune was worth about £540m before the credit crunch, meaning that he is not in the Abramovich league.

He does, however, have a good track record of success with his teams. He owned a string of minor league baseball teams, and then the Major League Florida Marlins, before he and his partners in New England Sports Ventures, Tom Werner and the New York Times Company, bought the Red Sox in 2002.

Within two years of purchase Red Sox, he helped to end "The Curse of the Bambino" . (Red Sox went 86 years without a World Series after the sale of the legendary Babe Ruth of their biggest rivals, NY Yankees).

Liverpool fans may also be pleased to know that Henry resisted temptations to move the club out of the historic Fenway Park and instead developed the old stadium.

Likewise, his Nascar team won their first Daytona 500 in 2009.

10.08am:

9:16 am: Liverpool's celebrity supporters produced this video against Hicks and Gillett.

9.09am:

So, Liverpool, bottom of the Premiership after their worst league start for donkeys, think they may have found a saviour. But the current owners, reviled by many, are not happy. This could be tricky to unpick.

Through the day we will try to unpick the details, work out who will end up owning the club, and gauge the reaction of fans, the league, the various claimants.

8.25am:

Liverpool Football Club has agreed the sale to the US owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, the club announced this morning.

In a statement on its Web site , Liverpool said its board had agreed the sale of the club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV), owners of the Boston Red Sox, New England Sports Network, Fenway Sports Group and Rousch Fenway Racing.

However the sale has ignited a boardroom battle, revealing the extent of the split at the highest level of the club. Late last night the American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, were believed to have rejected the NESV bid, despite the three other directors at Liverpool being prepared to accept it.

This led to an official statement from Liverpool accusing Hicks and Gillett opposing the proposal because the rate does not give them enough profit for their shares.

However, the club announced this morning that the sale took place.

"I am delighted that we have been able to successfully conclude the sale process which has been thorough and extensive," said Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton.

\\ "The Council decided to accept the NESV 'S proposal on the grounds that it best met the criteria we set out initially for a suitable new owner. NESV' philosophy is all about winning, and they have fully demonstrated that the Red Sox. "

\\ "We 've met them in Boston, London and Liverpool in a few weeks and I am very impressed by what they achieved, and with his vision for Liverpool," Broughton added.

"By removing the burden of acquisition debt, this offer allows us to focus on investment in the team. I am only disappointed that the owners have tried everything to prevent the deal from happening and that we need to go through legal proceedings in order to complete the sale."

The sale is conditional on Premier League approval, resolution of a dispute concerning Board membership and other matters.