Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck is prepared to offer a warm welcome to Liverpool's prospective new owners.
But Gold does not want debt used to replicate Pompey 'cheating'
Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck is prepared to offer a warm Premier League welcome to Liverpool's prospective new owners if the Americans have the correct intentions.
Anfield looks set to come under fresh ownership after New England Sports Ventures (NESV), owners of the Boston Red Sox, had a £300million offer accepted by the club's board.
The deal is subject to a legal wrangle caused by current Texas-based co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, who are understood to want to sell for £600m.
But Buck thinks that NESV could prove a welcome addition to England's top flight if they avoid the mistakes of Hicks and Gillett.
The Chelsea chairman said: "It depends on what the objective of a foreign owner is - if they are in a position to recognise the history and traditions of what they are buying then I'd say let's welcome them with open arms.
Relationship
"I think you need to build up a relationship with the fan groups. I don't think they [Hicks and Gillett] listened to the fans. It wasn't just the leverage of debt."
Wolves chairman Steve Morgan, who made an unsuccessful bid for Liverpool five years ago, said he would welcome the takeover going through.
He said: "I give a warm welcome to anything that resolves the issue, hopefully good for the club and fans.
"I'm not a fan of leveraged debt in football, if it doesn't happen on the pitch, interest bills of £40-50million are a hell of a hurdle before you've kicked the ball.
"They all understand the passion that exists for football and see it as an investment and opportunity to both invest and exit and multiply their wealth.
"Yet most American sports owners think they are going to go and do a better job and be a big success and win many championships and sometimes that doesn't quite work out. See example A, Liverpool.
Heart
"I think, like anyone who's got a bit of Liverpool in their heart, I have been very saddened to see what's happened to the club over the past six months in particular, so I give a warm welcome to anything that improves the issue."
West Ham co-owner David Gold said that debt alone was not an issue, unless like Portsmouth you used it 'to cheat'.
Gold said: "One of their [Hicks and Gillett] failures is they haven't delivered their promises. I think that's when the fans turned on them. Once that process started there was no stopping it.
"If you are using debt to cheat that's different. You can argue that Portsmouth built debt to cheat. They were buying players and spending extreme amounts of money and building debt.
"Portsmouth outbid people to buy those players. Is that not cheating? I see it as a form of cheating."
