I can see why everyone's making a fuss about Prince Faizal bin Fahad bin Abdullah al Said's visit to Anfield, especially after he claims to be close to injecting a third of a billion pounds into its veins. It seems that every club in the Premiership bemoans and detests the flood of foreign money into the game.. except and until their team has a chance at the lottery, at which point everyone goes weak in the knees for a sugar daddy. Liverpool, it seems, is in dire need of such support, because the Independent reported that the LFC loan documents contained the following revelation:

"Management believes that the normalised long-run level of new net player capital expenditure is £20m." The accompanying data suggests "long run" means the next five years.

£20m is the annual cap not only for transfers, but also new player contracts. So if Benitez wants to bump up Torres a few mil, management will take that right out of the transfer budget. That seems like huge news -- it basically slams the door on the Reds bringing in a major impact player over the next 5 years. Sure, the document suggests that the transfer number might rise as TV dollars rise, but as the Independent points out, domestic TV dollars are expected to drop over that time. So where's the furor? I haven't seen this story picked up on any other major football site, even those running the Saudi Prince stories front and center. No elite footballer costs less than £20m now; even fullbacks are going for that much and more. David Villa and David Silva are priced at £40m+ each. If it's true that Liverpool management will not do more than add spare parts every year until at least 2014, that is more devastating to the Reds than the transfer ban is to the Blues.

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