Amanda Staveley corrected that impression late on Friday night “I’ve just been speaking to him – he was on the golf course,” she said – and though getting him to talk about Liverpool at the IMG World Congress of Sports event at Dana Point, California, was evidently like getting blood out of stone, the essential point became clear. Liverpool is about economics more than emotion and the weakness of the dollar means his investment is just not paying for him. “It’s made it more difficult in terms of investing in those businesses because the dollar is really tremendously weak compared to where we started,” he said.

Listen (on the last of the clips) to Gillett talking about his other franchises though – the Montreal Candians ice hockey team and the Gillett Evernham Motorsports NASCAR racing team – and you really do get the unmistakable impression that ‘soccer’ just isn’t the labour of love for him that the other two franchises are.

There’s the against-all-odds ice hockey success (‘we’ve gone with kids and built with them’) and the sheer numbers (75-80m) turning out for NASCAR. That’s the kind of enthusiasm you need when the financial markets are crippling you.

What applies to Gillett does so for Hicks, too, of course. Does he really have minority shareholders interested to help him with the steepling increase in steel costs for the new stadium, as he says he does. Many Liverpool fans remain unconvinced. No wonder the noises emanating from DIC still point to a reopening of talks on a 49% takeover for them.

To see the George Gillett interview, click here