Liverpool wants Yanks to go

LONDON -- A mere 15 months ago, NHL owners George Gillett (Montreal Canadiens) and Tom Hicks (Dallas Stars, plus Texas Rangers) bought the Liverpool soccer club for a widely reported $435 million and won hosannas for their greet-the-people friendliness. They shook fans' hands at Liverpool's Anfield stadium and proclaimed its stunning din "like nothing I've ever heard or felt," in Gillett's words.

Since then the new owners have left skid marks in four directions. Georgey got peeved at Tommy. Georgey said he wanted to sell his half to those people from Dubai, but Tommy said Georgey couldn't sell without Tommy. Tommy said he'd buy from Georgey, but Georgey said he wouldn't sell to Tommy.

This could seem just another laugh-it-off case of high school never ending but for the setting and the heartsickness and the stratospheric finances. The 15-month saga of two American owners has beset venerable Liverpool soccer, the most successful club in English history and one of the foremost clubs on the planet, and it has aggrieved a fan base that may know no earthly peer in feeling a team in its very bloodstream.

"People are actually cracking up about this," said Liverpool playwright Nicky Alt, soon adding, "They just don't know who's who and what's going on."

With Liverpool's exiting the European Champions League semifinals Wednesday night at Chelsea in London, a dying season's focus for many now turns to a new and wider grievance: shooing the Americans.

So it's almost whiplash-worthy that fans have mounted a new supporters' union in crisis, circulated petitions imploring Hicks to sell, heckled Hicks' son at a pub in January, allegedly phoned in death threats on Gillett and made statements such as, "There's no coming back for them now," as stated Nick Atkinson from the newfound supporters' union.

One fan, senior lecturer Dr. Rogan Taylor of the University of Liverpool's school of management, heads a bid to buy the club in a mass-fan formation similar to Barcelona (soccer) and Green Bay (NFL). Another fan, Alt, plans to fly to Dallas, hoping to stand outside Hicks' office with questions and some TV coverage.

How did things get from there to here?

At heart is the English -- and especially Liverpudlian -- resistance to the notion of sports clubs as "franchises," rather than integral, organic parts of communities.

Then come four prominent words concerning Hicks and Gillett that hit unexpectedly in January: $700-million refinancing plan.