THERE are more than 350 events planned for Liverpool's year of culture, many involving sport.

But there is one not on the official list which would be guaranteed to make the city a better place.

That is for Tom Hicks and George Gillett to sell their shares in Liverpool football club and allow someone who actually knows the first thing about football to restore dignity and pride to one of football's most famous clubs.

Reports suggest talks already have begun with Dubai International Capital - the investment arm of the Dubai Government - for the second takeover of Liverpool in less than a year.

And while it would be sad to see Liverpool passed across continents like some cheap bauble, much better a bunch of sheikhs who appear to have the club's interests at heart than two investors who have turned the club into little short of a laughing stock.

There is a phrase for businessmen who, by their own incompetence, damage their most important assets.

It is called doing a Ratner, after former jewellery boss Gerald Ratner who famously stood up at a city function and described one of his own products as total crap,'' only to see his business go down the pan.

Hicks and Gillett may not have used such pithy language but if reports that they are sick and tired'' of the club and can't wait to get rid of it'' are true then they only confirm the crass behaviour of recent months.

Oh yes, there were plenty of smiles and accommodating soundbites when they paid David Moores a fistful of dollars for control of the club last year.

But those of us dismayed to hear football owners talking about Liverpool as a soccer franchise' and who clearly had never heard of Bill Shankly, Ron Yeats, Emlyn Hughes or anything which represented the greatness of one of Britain's proudest sporting institutions were always sceptical of the Americans' real intentions.

Now it seems Hicks and Gillett, whose financial commitment appears to have hit problems due to the global credit crunch and in particular the sub-prime mortgage problems affecting the United States, were perhaps in it not for the love of sport, but for the money.

Which is why if DIC come up with a firm and realistic bid - and the starting point appears to be anywhere between £300m- £400m - expect them to take a profit and run for them thar hills.

And that day cannot come soon enough.

They have turned a club in Liverpool with a history second to none, a tradition for fine football, a reputation for conducting itself in the most refined of manners, into a club which peddles rumour and uncertainty.

They have failed to deliver the new stadium on which Liverpool's future hinges, even if new architect designs are under scrutiny and refinancing talks for a less ambitious project ongoing.

Most of all, they have treated manager Rafael Benitez with nothing short of contempt.

The juvenile way Benitez reacted when he was told a deep pot of transfer cash would not be forthcoming in the January window was wrong. After all, he had been backed to the tune of some £50m in the summer, including the £21m purchase of Fernando Torres.

But the admission by Hicks that he had gone behind Benitez's back to talk to Jurgen Klinsmann about potentially taking over at Liverpool summed up the crassness of the Americans.

Rarely has there been a more ham-fisted, less subtle example of the dark art of footballing politics.

It was not the way of Shankly.

It was not the way of the Moores family who ran Liverpool for decades with a reserve and a charm which appears to have gone the way of laced-up footballs.

That is the price English football has paid for selling its soul to foreign owners.