Financial turmoil could flush out unwanted owners

Earlier this year, Hank Hicks and Billy Bob Gillett ran into a little money trouble and faced the prospect of offloading Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel just to pay the heating bills. Today, the papers are awash with the news that the American investors have suffered at the hands of the current financial apocalypse and will owe two banks (Wachovia and the Royal Bank of Scotland) £350m in January. They do not currently have the cash, and refinancing loans from two of the worst hit banks in the crisis will be harder than getting Ledley King to stay sober in a nightclub.

While the prospect of a fire sale right in the middle of a serious title campaign is a possible (and potentially disastrous) way of raising much-needed equity, the current predicament does have a rather large silver lining: Hicks and Gillett may be desperate to bail out, forcing