I’ve heard a lot of Liverpool fans saying the Americans must go but apart from a lot of ineffective grumbling there appears to be no action plan to actually make this happen. If we fans act as a group we can force Hicks out but this will not happen if we merely complain but at the same time continue to support the very assumptions (all financial) on which Hicks’s continued ownership is based. Hicks doesn’t give a shit what we say or think as long as we continue to financially support his plans.

We must have an action plan. This involves immediate cessation of all financial support of any kind to the club (while Hicks remains in control of it) for as long as it takes to force him out. Those who can still cancel tickets etc should do so asap and no further monies should be paid of any kind. This must be allied to loud, public and ongoing protests outside the ground which even Hicks cannot simply cannot ignore. Again this must continue for as long as it takes.

Hicks promised us (and David Moores) that the huge loans he used to buy the club would not be transferred onto the club but this is effectively exactly what he has done because neither Hicks nor Gillett has added a penny of his own money. They both expect the club to fund the crippling interest payments of over £30 million per annum on the full £350 million debt. The sums simply do not add up. Fans should read the article by Nick Harris in the Independant for 26 January 2008.

Fans should also remember that the new £350 million debt only covers initial construction costs for the stadium so Hicks’ plans necessitate lots of further borrowing. The vast majority of the existing £350 million debt is merely to refinance Hicks and Gillett’s intial borrowings to buy the club. It is adding no value whatsoever to the club which means the club is much, much worse off than if it had simply borrowed the money itself to fund the new construction like Arsenal did. All Hicks and Gillett have added to the new stadium project is huge and unmanageable amounts of debt and delay. The maintenance of those debts will surely cripple any attempt by us to remain competitive on the field. There is not a single businessman anywhere who can understand what possible benefit Hicks has brought to the club. Even RBS thinks think his scheme will likely fail in the long term.

The signing of Mascherano should not fool anyone. This is just more evidence that Hicks thinks we are all mindless morons who can be controlled by cheap propaganda. He is counting on enough of us simply putting up with his rule and going with the flow. He is counting on us not having enough balls to really unite against him. Unfortunately we don’t have time to wait for things to develop as they inevitabley will. The choice is simple. Do we unite now to force out Hicks or just let the club go the same way as Leeds ??