George Gillett and Tom Hicks have joined fellow Americans Malcom Glazer and Randy Lerner and acquired an English premiership football club after agreeing a deal in the region of £470M with the Liverpool board.

The deal is different from the one that saw Manchester United become the possession of Glazer, where he borrowed heavily to buy the club and then gave the debt to the club to service.

Gillett and Hicks have pledged that they would not put Liverpool in the same position and the deal is believed to include monies to clear the club’s current debt of around £80M, build a new stadium and allow manager Rafa Benitez to compete in the transfer market.