Liverpool’s owners must raise £100m or sell up

Liverpool's owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett will be forced to put the club up for sale if they cannot attract £100m of new investment in the next six months, according to the club's managing director, Christian Purslow.

The situation was made clear at a meeting between Purslow and the Spirit of Shankly Supporters Union (SOS) group last month. However, two very different interpretations of what else was said at the meeting have emerged.

The two parties have failed to agree on the minutes of the meeting and the SOS version contains some explosive comments supposedly made by Purslow about the club's future and the financial predicament of the owners.

He is alleged to have told the fans that if the extra money could not be raised there was "no Plan B" and apparently went on to say: "LFC is for sale. It will be sold. The owners have to sell, they are out of money. The bank want it sold, the fans want it sold and people want to buy it."

The SOS group also quote Purslow as saying: "The promises of Hicks and Gillett are unforgivable. Hicks and Gillett cannot hang onto the club."

They claim Purslow told them that there was no budget for transfers and that would only change if Liverpool could attact a "sugar daddy".

What is clear from both sets of minutes is that the bank RBS is insisting that the club secures £100m in investment by July, when the current refinancing agreement expires, to reduce its debt of £237m. In Purslow's version of the meeting he says: "This new investment will also mean a dilution of the current ownership."

But according to the SOS, Purslow admitted that by offering just 25 per cent of the club for £100m the owners are putting off buyers.

Hicks and Gillett are unpopular with Liverpool's fans who accuse them of breaking the promises they made when they took over the club in 2007. The pair have since fallen out, plans for a new stadium have hit the buffers, they have been accused of trying to oust manager Rafa Benitez and the club now finds itself in financial difficulty.

Last year Prince Faisal was in discussions with the owners about buying into the club, but there was no deal. In 2008 Tom Hicks used his veto to prevent Dubai International Capital from taking over the other 50 per cent of the club that Gillett controls. ·