'Ridiculous' - Ex-Liverpool chief executive reveals telling Tom Hicks and George Gillett truth

Former Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry has revealed he doesn’t know how the club managed to achieve any success under the previous ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, in a revealing interview. Parry was the executive at the club for 12 years but he left after his relationship with manager Rafael Benitez became strained and he was even asked to resign by Gillett prior to his departure. Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool's current owners, took over from the American duo in 2010 and have overseen a successful period in the club's history. Fans protested heavily against the American duo which forced them to sell after accruing huge debts at the club.

Speaking on William Hill's Up Front with Simon Jordan, he was quizzed over the previous ownership at the club, as Parry criticised the duo of Hicks and Gillett.

“How Liverpool ever achieved anything under Hicks and Gillett is one of life’s great mysteries. The day before they took over was when I had already started to think, ‘what have I gotten into here?’

“We had known George Gillett for quite a long time, he was very likeable and gave us free reign which was quite commendable. He then brought in Tom Hicks literally a week before the takeover.

"We didn’t really know Tom, but they had done business together before. It was a classic case of being able to happily survive together in many different businesses, but football is something different.

“They were 50/50 in the ownership and there were no deadlock provisions, which is ridiculous. It was rushed and they had put their plan together too quickly. In hindsight it was ridiculous, but we didn’t know the nature of their deal at the time and it became the source of many challenges down the line.”

Criticism of the American owners stretched from their chaotic start to the 2010/11 campaign which saw Roy Hodgson's slump into the relegation zone following their worst start to a season for 57 years which pushed them to the brink of leaving.

Fans protested regularly against the owners, who had built up a total of more than £472.5m worth of debt. The club was eventually sold to FSG.

Hicks also previously hit out Gillett for being 'impossible to deal with' as well as saying that he had picked the wrong partner; he spoke in 2019 about how he wanted to get rid of Parry, but Gillett denied him:

"It was very frustrating because George had personal financial issues, he had other things going on, he just didn't look at things the way I would have liked to have looked at things and so, in a 50-50 deal, you have to agree or you default to a negative position.

"For instance, I wanted to get rid of [chief executive] Rick Parry from the very beginning and George protected him for way too long and I think we lost a lot of momentum then, and yes, it was an interesting period of time!"