FORMER LIVERPOOL OWNER Tom Hicks has claimed he and his partner George Gillett were “swindled” when they sold the club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV).

Speaking to Sky Sports News, Hicks said he was “angry” that “this very valuable asset has been swindled away” from him in an “epic swindle”.

Hicks added that the trauma of the sale has hurt his family “tremendously”.

“I have been working very hard to solve the issue. We know there are better owners around the world who should own Liverpool Football Club than the Boston Red Sox group (NESV). We knew who they were and were frustrated every time we had conversations with them.

Our desire was to have Liverpool in the hands of the right and proper next owner who could build the stadium and make Liverpool the top club in the world that it deserves to be."

The Texan investor claims he was victim of a witch-hunt which forced him out of the boardroom.

"The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) wanted it done the day after and there was no reason for that. Liverpool were a very healthy financial performing club. There was a bit too much debt, no question, but we were going to fix that."

Hicks says that a "conspiracy" in the Anfiled boardroom prevented him from repaying RBS.

"We did have the funds available to pay off RBS in its entirety. But between RBS and the chairman and the employees that conspired against us, we could not pay off the debt."

"I know exactly why that was, they had the ability to. This was an organised conspiracy and it went on for months. It consisted of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Martin Broughton - who wanted a good PR event in his life because he's a Chelsea fan, he's not even a Liverpool fan - he wanted to be seen as the guy who got rid of the Americans."