**Former owner David Moores has admitted he “hugely regrets” selling Liverpool to George Gillett and Tom Hicks and has called on them to sell up.**Moores sold the club to the American duo in 2007 but their reign has been controversial, with concerns mounting about the Premier League outfit’s debt.
In a letter to the Times newspaper, Moores insisted he acted with the “very best interests of the club at heart”.
He wants the pair to leave and added: “Don’t punish the supporters any more.”
Gillett and Hicks have had a turbulent spell in charge since taking over the club from Moores in a deal worth about £200m.
Their reign has proved unpopular with supporters, who regularly voice their dissatisfaction at the level of debt taken on by the club after the buy-out.
Liverpool are currently £351.4m in debt and the club’s finances will not be helped by the failure to qualify for the lucrative Champions League next season. There are also issues over funding for a new stadium in Stanley Park as well as providing a budget for manager Rafael Benitez.
Gillett and Hicks announced in April that they intend to sell the club and Moores’published the day after the five-year anniversary of Liverpool’s stunning Champions League final victory over AC Milan in Istanbul, will place further pressure on Liverpool’s co-owners to find a buyer.
In it, he addresses several issues, including the reasons for his sale, the checks the club did on Gillett and Hicks as well as his opinions on their tenure.
Moores said his departure was in the pipeline following the hugely successful Euro 96 tournament in England with “the influx of more and more overseas superstars on superstar wages”.
He stated: “I was aware the game was changing beyond all recognition and deeply worried, too, about my ability to continue underwriting the financial side.”
Moores remained in charge but the search for a new owner started in the wake of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea.
“The Abramovich era was upon us and I knew that I could never compete,” added Moores.
He believes the hunt was conducted in the proper way and added: "So sincere was our commitment to finding that person or company, that we invested huge sums and massive amounts of time investigating potential investors, only to conclude that they were not the right people for Liverpool.
“It would have been easier, I assure you, just to take the money, cross our fingers tight and hope things worked out - but we dug deep into every file and asked all the tough questions, knowing the answers might scupper any deal.”
Moores said the process of looking into the background of Hicks and Gillett was detailed but there was an “element of the process I accept we could have handled better”.
“We had looked into George Gillett’s affairs in detail and he came up to scratch,” he said. "To a great extent, we took Tom Hicks on trust, on George’s say-so.
"Could we have done more? Probably - though under those circumstances, in that time-frame, probably not.
“We did our due diligence on Messrs Gillett and Hicks and if we’re guilty of anything it is that, after four years searching, we may have been too keen, too ready to hear the good news that George and Tom had passed their tests.”
**More to follow.**This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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