Rick Parry will quit Anfield this summer

Liverpool will announce today that Rick Parry will leave the club at the end of the season.

The chief executive, who has been embroiled in a power struggle with Rafael Benitez, will depart from Anfield, which will represent a massive victory for the manager.

Parry has been negotiating a payoff for the past few weeks.

This development comes at the end of a fraught week for the club during which rumours have circulated that the manager had been dismissed. Benitez has emerged stronger after the Champions League victory over Real Madrid on Wednesday, but the painful politics of Liverpool mean that even today's development does not make the manager's situation palpably clearer.

Parry was known to be an ally of George Gillett Jr, the club's co-owner, but the pair are believed to have fallen out over the stories that surfaced on Wednesday suggesting that Benitez was about to leave the club.

Gillett has found no buyer for his 50 per cent stake, but this latest development opens the door to a change of ownership at Anfield because the co-owner has lost his last ally at the club.