Tom Hicks has kept his shareholding in Liverpool separate from his other sports assets in apparent fear of a collapse of the highly leveraged Premier League club. Digger has obtained a corporate flowchart detailing all of the sporting interests Hicks has held through his holding company, HSG Hicks Sports Group.

The chart was filed with a US court in bankruptcy proceedings against Texas Rangers, the Major League Baseball franchise that has now been sold by Hicks, in which the courts had invited Rangers' creditors to pursue other HSG assets.

That order could put at risk his stake in the Dallas Stars ice hockey team, as well as stakes in those organisations' associated real estate operations, which sat alongside the Texas Rangers in HSG. Yet, curiously, Liverpool's ultimate parent company, Kop Investment LLC, is not listed among them.

It is not known precisely how his Kop shareholding is structured since that company has never met its statutory requirement to file an annual return. But Liverpool's ring-fencing out of HSG cannot have been for tax or legal reasons: Kop is registered in Delaware, the tax-friendly location where other Hicks investments are held. A spokesman for Hicks did not return calls yesterday after Digger put it to him that the purpose of the separation was to prevent Liverpool's debts causing problems for other HSG assets. Despite their separation the dominoes have begun to fall.

No Beckham blow for FA

You might have thought that Fabio Capello's decision to end David Beckham's international career would impact the Football Association's earning power from its sponsors. But apparently not, at least not much. The kit deal with Umbro means the bulk of its earnings are fixed and not contingent on the number of shirts sold. And as far as Digger can tell, Beckham's only personal appearance over the past two years for the FA was for National Express, and they went all the way to Los Angeles to get it.

Clarke keeps out

Sir Dave Richards sees the facilitation of takeover deals for clubs as one of his responsibilities as Premier League chairman. So when Leicester City yesterday passed from Milan Mandaric's ownership to that of Aiyawatt Raksriaksorn, a scion of a major Thai business dynasty, Digger wondered if Greg Clarke, the chairman of the Football League and a Leicester City season-ticket holder, might have greased the wheels. After all, he was previously chief executive of Lend Lease, the Australian conglomerate that has an outlet in Thailand. But Clarke was not involved in the deal and will not be involved in any other either. So it seems his views on what is required of an independent chairman differ from those of Richards.

Mills is no mug

When Sir Keith Mills this weekwarned he would withdraw TeamOrigin from the next America's Cup if BMW Oracle press ahead with plans to use multi-hull boats, it was not a threat he made lightly. Mills, the deputy chairman of London 2012, and a Tottenham Hotspur board member, has poured eye-watering sums into his campaign but will walk away from it all if he feels there is no chance of winning the Auld Mug fairly. The strength of his feeling can now be quantified: in the first two years of the campaign launched in 2007, he and his investment partner, Charles Dunstone, spent £17m on the venture.

Referees can sleep sound all about it

In the absence of a sponsor to replace the departed England partner,Nationwide, there was space on the Wembley hoardings during Wednesday's friendly win over Hungary. The FA chose to fill the void with evidence of the work it has been doing at grassroots level. "Ref assaults down 13%," it trumpeted. That much, eh? Well, gotta have a dream.