Purslow On Short List For Independent Regulator Job? OK, Let’s Talk Blacklists

SKY NEWS IS reporting that Christian Purslow is being considered to head the proposed Independent Football Regulator. It’s hard to think of a more appalling choice for such an important role.

Purslow entered the game as managing director of Liverpool 16 years ago, at the height of protests against the carpetbagging owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks. He parlayed that experience into a commercial role at Chelsea and then a stint as chief executive of Aston Villa.

With a career in private equity on his resume, the 61-year-old appears to be a reasonable candidate for the new position. The suitability is merely superficial.

There is a single document that should rule Purslow out of any role in football. In 2010 he had Paul Tyrell, his sidekick and head of communications at Anfield, compile a briefing document detailing supporters and journalists who were believed to be “enemies of the club.”

The four pages are a masterpiece of misinformation. Tyrell began his career in journalism. It’s just as well that he became a press officer. There is so much wrong about the information he provided to Purslow that it is laughable. ‘PT’, as he signed the document, is now the chief operations officer at Nottingham Forest. Fools fall upward in football.

Which brings us back to Purslow. By the time these briefing notes were produced, he had already gained a reputation on Merseyside as a duplicitous fanboy. After meeting the Spirit of Shankly supporters’ union (originally called Sons of Shankly), he referred to the group as “Sons of strikers” in a sneering manner.

Gillett and Hicks engaged Purslow because of his background in private equity. The American owners were battling to stave off the banks after their leveraged buyout was undermined by the credit crunch. Within weeks the new man was telling important figures around the club – including some players – that his plan was to raise the money to buy Anfield himself and shaft the owners, who were engaged in a civil war. The man who referred to himself as ‘the Fernando Torres of finance’ could not back up his promises.

Talking of Torres, Purslow was in thrall to the Spanish forward and Steve Gerrard, the two standout performers in the squad. There were bets among the players about how quickly the managing director would home in on one of the superstars when he entered the dressing room.

The players called him ‘Forrest Gump’ because of his tendency to put himself at the centre of everything that happened. The biggest cringe moment happened in Florence, before Liverpool suffered a 2-0 defeat to Fiorentina in the Champions League. Purslow, lurking in the tunnel close to the cameras, patted Gerrard on the backside and said, “Go’ed, Stevie, la.” Where did he develop such a turn of phrase? Aylesbury Grammar School? Cambridge University? Harvard Business School? Or are they simply the words of a try-hard bullshitter?

So back to the blacklist. Its most famous line is mindboggling in how it smears those included in its pages. “They are the sporting version of the Khmer Rouge,” it says.

The opening of the infamous briefing note

The Khmer Rouge was the government that ruled Cambodia in the late 1970s. The Communist movement oversaw a genocide that led to the deaths of as many as two million people, 25 per cent of the country’s population. That is some comparison.

In this one overblown and ugly line, the contempt that Purslow and his cadre hold for supporters is laid bare. The entire document is worth reading.

My mini biography. I was not a founder member of anything. The Guardian did not run this in their piece because they considered the implication I went to the US because of Heysel libellous. I went to live in America after Hillsborough, four years after the horror of Brussels

Few people who have dealt with Purslow have positive things to say about their encounters. He is supremely confident and appears plausible to the unwary. He was the driving force behind bringing Roy Hodgson to Anfield. That, however, was not his worst gaffe.

In April 2010, when Joe Cole scored for Chelsea at Old Trafford in the London club’s 2-1 victory over Manchester United, Purslow texted a journalist with the words, “wouldn’t you like to see him in a Liverpool shirt?” The answer was an emphatic “no.” Purslow would not be denied.

He signed Cole, who made a mere 42 appearances in a red shirt over four years.

The former equity trader thought he knew more than those who spent their working life in football. He was an amateur making amateur mistakes.

What is surprising is that someone with a Masters degree in business administration from one of the most prestigious universities in the world should give a 29-year-old with a questionable injury record a contract worth more than £28 million over four years. Cole scored five goals for Liverpool.

Purslow’s self-belief is awe-inspiring. He has a Trump-like ability to distort the truth to suit his narrative. As Rafa Benitez stumbled his way towards the sack in the spring of 2010, Purslow told the football correspondent of The Times that he would decide the manager’s fate and the clock was ticking.

I was football editor of the paper. We ran the story. It did not name Purslow but it was clear that the information came from a very senior figure within the club.

The managing director rang me on the morning of Liverpool’s last home game of the season. It was the first time we spoke. He swore blind that he was not the source of the story.

I explained to him that a football editor and his senior reporter had to have a close relationship. And I was a Liverpool supporter. “We have no secrets,” I said, “I was told who the source was, where the conversation happened, what exactly was said.”

I then asked explicitly. “So you’re saying It wasn’t you?”

“No, it wasn’t me,” he said, “on my daughter’s life.”

I still have the notes. There are other variations on this theme. “I’m a good Catholic boy, I wouldn’t lie,” “you must believe me,” and other classics of the genre sprinkled the conversation.

The Khmer Rouge document should have been enough to kill Purslow’s career. But now he’s in a position to become one of the most powerful individuals in English football. Several important figures in the game have messaged their dismay.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Purslow cannot lead the Independent Regulator. The game’s in enough trouble as it is.

• More on Purslow here

• Far Foreign Land, a book about Istanbul and Liverpool’s supporter culture, is available here £10 UK, £15 Europe, £18 Rest Of World. All including postage. Get it in time for the 20th anniversary