While his Liverpool FC co-owner George Gillett can look forward to a US$500 million windfall from the sale of the Montreal Canadiens, Tom Hicks has reportedly been hit by another blow.

The Liverpool Echo claims that Hicks has been forced to go cap in hand to Major League Baseball for millions of dollars in loans towards player wages at the Texas Rangers, and will be forced out of the franchise. "He won't be running the team much longer," the newspaper quotes a source as saying. "Major League Baseball is helping him through this until someone else can be put in place to run the club."

The newspaper adds that the problems are unlikely to affect the refinancing of the co-owners' loan with Wachovia and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

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