by Rory Smith, Sunday Telegraph
The seeds of Rick Parry's demise were sown long before Tom Hicks and George Gillett had heard of Anfield or Rafa Benitez cast his eye over Gareth Barry. Instead, the Liverpool chief executive was a marked man from the moment one million Liverpool fans who thronged the city to celebrate the miracle of Istanbul started to disperse.In the immediate aftermath of that remarkable night, the club's captain and heartbeat, Steven Gerrard, declared he would reject Chelsea's overtures but Parry prevaricated over a new deal. Benitez came within a whisker of losing the man central to his plans to make Liverpool great again.
Interference from those above him is a subject close to the Spaniard's heart. His clashes with Jesus Garcia Pitarch, the sporting director he could not work with at Valencia, have made him suspicious of the efficacy of those above him, of their intentions and agendas.
From the moment Parry almost lost Gerrard, Benitez was on alert, waiting, watching. By the end of the summer of 2005, Parry's failure to agree a payment schedule with Benfica over the £10 million transfer of Simao Sabrosa had cost Benitez his main transfer target with the player's medical completed. The manager was furious. A year later, Parry could not seal an £8 million deal to sign Daniel Alves, the Sevilla full-back.
Benitez knew Liverpool were not cash-rich when he joined from Valencia but, in the days before the club's current custodians arrived with pockets full of credit notes, it was less Liverpool's financial power than Parry's inability to close a deal which concerned the Spaniard.
The manager who complained at the Mestalla that Garcia Pitarch bought him a lamp when he asked for a table found himself at a club where they knew what furniture to buy but could not remember their pin number.
When Parry and Moores, in return for a substantial bonus payment and guarantees over their own futures, sold the club to Tom Hicks and George Gillett in February 2007, money was not supposed to be an issue. That, of course, proved to be a false dawn. After that year's Champions League final, Benitez complained the club had to back him in the transfer market if they were to remain at the top of the European game.
Hicks and Gillett responded, signing Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel for a combined fee of up to £40 million, but it did not take long for the cracks to appear. In November that year, Benitez, furious the club's owners would not give him a concrete response to his detailed plans for the forthcoming January transfer window, revealed in a stormy press conference he had been told to concentrate solely on coaching his current squad.
Behind the scenes, the club was in chaos. Benitez had threatened to leave for one of his long-time Italian suitors, including Inter Milan, if he was not given the requisite funds.
In the tumult, Parry helped set up a meeting at Jürgen Klinsmann's California home, which he, Hicks and Gillett attended.
The German was offered Benitez's job should the Spaniard quit. When details of the meeting became public the following April – contradicting Parry's earlier statement that he had known nothing of it – Benitez knew the situation could not continue.
Sources inside Anfield suggest it was at that stage that the manager's relationship with Parry broke down irretrievably. That led to a clear division within the fractured power structure at the club. Hicks and Benitez became allies as the Texan, himself unimpressed by Parry's commercial performance, tried to oust the chief executive, who was saved only by Gillett.
By the time of last summer's Gareth Barry debacle, yet another transfer failure from Parry, the die was almost cast. Hicks spoke in April of Parry as a "disaster" for allowing Liverpool's famous name to fall behind Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea in terms of sponsorship, merchandising and brand value.
Parry, believing the club could be sold in the summer, clung on, believing he could survive as both Hicks and Gillett fell. As Benitez's contract negotiations started last year, it became obvious Hicks was going nowhere, actively seeking new investment to replace Gillett. The reality that Gillett would leave the club, leaving Parry a sitting duck, slowly dawned.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/liverpool/4885080/How-Rick-Parry-walked-alone-after-relationship-with-Rafael-Benitez-fell-apart.htmlGood article. Reminded me what a complete F**k up Rick Parry has been for us.
