Source: Daily_Mail
CHARLES SALE'S SPORTS AGENDA: City gent Sulaiman buys up Pompey for £80m
Portsmouth, whose lavish spending almost put them out of business, were sold to outspoken billionaire businessman Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim yesterday following two days of talks in Rome before the Champions League final.
The negotiations were carried out by Portsmouth executive chairman Peter Storrie, agent Pini Zahavi and another major football fixer, Pairoj Piempongsant - the Thai businessman who brokered the deal that saw Thaksin Shinawatra sell Manchester City to the Abu Dhabi United Group.
The setting was the top-floor open-air bar of the Sofitel hotel overlooking the Eternal City. Storrie returned to the UK yesterday morning after a sizeable full breakfast without staying for the match, his job done after a clinching takeover summit on Tuesday night with Al Fahim.
The sale, which is now the subject of due diligence, ensures Portsmouth will not suffer the potential ignominy of being the first Premier League club to go into administration.
UAE property developer Al Fahim was the frontman for the Abu Dhabi United Group after their purchase of Manchester City, whose bold predictions included the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo, before City owner Sheik Mansour opted for a lower profile.
Sulaiman is understood to be paying £80million for Portsmouth through his new investment vehicle, Al Fahim Asia Associates. Pompey had debts of around £65m with £40m owed to the South African Standard Bank and another £25m in loans to current owner Alexandre Gaydamak.
The agreement, just before Standard Bank were due a huge repayment that was in danger of taking Pompey under, means a firesale of players is averted. Instead the club will have unexpected spending power for next season, by when it is likely that manager Paul Hart will have been replaced.
Zahavi, who is involved in more big deals than any other agent, was close to securing a South African buyer for Portsmouth before Al Fahim got the taste for Premier League football ownership from his Manchester City experience.
Manchester United's discredited shirt sponsors AIG, who suffered the biggest loss in corporate history in 2008, were so keen not to be seen partying in Rome when they are 80 per cent owned by the Federal Reserve, they didn't even send the company's club liaison manager with the football club to Italy.
And AIG have also cancelled their Old Trafford club date on June 1 when sponsors are allowed to use the pitch.
Instead they have handed over use to children's charity UNICEF, whose name is on the Barcelona shirts for free compared to the £56m AIG have paid United.
When former Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari (right) took his side to play Roma in the group stage of the Champions League, he declared he wanted to return to the Hilton Cavalieri if Chelsea reached the last two.
In the event, UEFA told clubs at the quarter-final draw stage that European football's ruling body had booked Rome's glitziest hotel for their own lavish purposes for the final.
Even with the famously anti-English Michel Platini at the presidential helm of UEFA, his predecessor Lennart Johansson (right) is convinced the majority of UEFA's executive committee will support England's World Cup 2018 bid.
And Swede Johannsson says of his successor: 'He's French and like all Frenchman, they only speak French and think their country is at the centre of the universe.'
Mann's inhumanity to man
BBC paranoia is such that late order Match of the Day commentator Alistair Mann, hosting a quiz night in Manchester, pettily refused to read out the full name of one media team who had called themselves 'Mark Saggars Deserves Better' - a reference to sports broadcaster Saggars, who has been signed by talkSPORT after not having his contract renewed by Five Live despite hosting last night's Champions League final.
The selection of Jonathan Pearce (right) to commentate for BBC Sport on the final stages of the Confederations Cup in South Africa this summer points to him having nudged ahead of Steve Wilson and Guy Mowbray at last in the marathon beauty parade to succeed John Motson as the Beeb's number one.
