Source: Daily_Mail
MARTIN SAMUEL: Dubai's very own Del Boy, Sulaiman Al Fahim, has no quick fix at Portsmouth
Sol Campbell may be a much-maligned figure right now, but one observation he offered on the changing face of football ownership made perfect sense. ‘When people have money things happen quickly,’ Campbell said. And they do.
Remember the day Sheik Mansour bought Manchester City? Robinho arrived that afternoon. The immediate aftermath of Roman Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea was a whirl.
Campbell’s words do not in any way justify his personal circumstances because, in the case of Notts County, things have happened at a speed relative to the pace of League Two. But when employed more widely, their wisdom becomes clear. Campbell has hit the nail on the head, but with reference to his old club, Portsmouth.
Sulaiman Al Fahim, the new owner, is not a shy one. Prominent initially as the front man in the Manchester City takeover, his gauche boasts about buying Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi appalled the real owners, who were trying to portray their Abu Dhabi homeland as the classy alternative to upstart Dubai.
Struggling: Sulaiman Al Fahim has seen Portsmouth wheeling and dealing
Struggling: Sulaiman Al Fahim has seen Portsmouth wheeling and dealing
They wanted to be seen as serious businessmen, not wealthy interlopers throwing their money around, and Fahim was quietly removed from the project. ‘He was too Dubai,’ said one representative of the Mansour family. City have been trying to live down his moment in the sun ever since.
Fahim was also prominent when Piers Morgan made his ITV documentary about Dubai. He showed off his Lamborghini Murcielago, saying he paid $600,000 (£375,000) extra for the interior trimmings. He added that he bought the number plate 93 for $2million (£1.25m), to mark the year his wife graduated from college. Then there was a tour in his private jet.
‘I came to Dubai to find out if it is all it is cracked up to be and the answer, if you like sun and fun, glitz and glamour, is a resounding yes,’ said the impressed Morgan. No mention of how it came to be that way, though.
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No visit to Sonapur, the concrete shanty town, holding roughly 300,000 low-paid migrant workers, passports confiscated and stranded, toiling 14 hours daily in heat that can reach 55 degrees C, with no way out and no fare home.
The Indian consulate logged 971 deaths of its expatriate citizens working in Dubai’ s construction trade in 2005, the last year in which figures were recorded. This is Dubai, confidential.
On the surface, though, all is wonderful and glamorous, so when doubts were first expressed about the Fahim takeover at Portsmouth, Morgan sprang to the defence of his erstwhile tour guide. ‘The last time I saw Sulaiman he took me for a spin in his private jet over Dubai, then drove me around in his white, Versace-designed Lamborghini. The guy is so loaded his eyeballs are made of platinum,’ he told a concerned correspondent, who was a Portsmouth fan.
That endorsement was published on August 16, 2009, since when the Fahim administration has taken control at Fratton Park for £60m, but with evidence of platinum optics hardly forthcoming. Portsmouth had a busy time in the build-up to the transfer deadline, but not Abramovich busy. It was more like the way Del Boy used to approach an auction, coming out with a job lot of Russian army camcorders or lockable briefcases with the security code missing.
Paul Hart, the Portsmouth manager, never moved beyond the realms of the car boot sale to snap up Nadir Belhadj, Tommy Smith, Danny Webber, Mike Williamson, Hassan Yebda, Tal Ben Haim, Michael Brown, Jamie O’Hara and Kevin-Prince Boateng, the majority for substantially less than his owner claimed to have paid for a number plate, and some via the loan system.
Uncle Albert (Buster Merryfield), Del Boy (SIR DAVID JASON) and Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst)
C'est magnifique? Do Pompey's budget moves in the transfer market remind you of anyone?
It could be argued that time was tight and Portsmouth’s needs were great but, even so, there was better out there for a club whose owner was said to eschew rose-tinted spectacles for platinum vision.
On deadline day, for instance, Spurs managed to snap up Niko Kranjcar, a very useful 25-year-old left winger with 50 international caps for Croatia at a bargain £2.5m — sadly, from Portsmouth. So things were happening quickly on the south coast, but not in a way that suggested money had swaggered into town. Fahim donned the replica shirt with his name on the back faster than you could say Mike Ashley, but to what effect?
Portsmouth do not need one extra fan, they already have thousands of them. The club need cash and if provided by a man with a head for business, a sober suit and tie and an aversion to publicity, so much the better.
Instead, what they have is Fahim, talking in telephone numbers and making promises that pose more questions than answers. ‘There is a plan in place backed by firm commitments that will bring £50m into the club over the next three to four weeks,’ the man with the platinum wotsits told a fans’ forum. ‘The continued rumours about going into administration are also deeply misleading and damaging to the club’s interest, to the point where they are threatening to undermine the viability of the club and are damaging my efforts to secure financial stability.’
This appears to be the first vicious circle custom-designed for convenience.
The reason Portsmouth could go skint is because people keep putting it about that Portsmouth could go skint; not because the man in charge lacks the sufficient funds to manage a Premier League football club.
It makes no sense, especially after the television broadcast in which Fahim was billed as the ‘Alan Sugar of Arabia’ and ‘the man who bought Manchester City’, which would certainly have come as a surprise to the family of Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Piers Morgan
Cooing: Morgan
‘On your first property deal you made $150m (£95m),’ cooed Morgan, admiringly. ‘That’s right,’ simpered Fahim.
Yet if he possessed the wealth so audaciously displayed and discussed for the television cameras, and was willing to use some of it on Portsmouth, why is he still hanging about waiting for outside money to prop up his reputation. He could kill the rumours of financial instability in an instant.
Instead he talks about his attempts to make the club viable and secure their finances. Wasn’t that what his takeover was meant to do? Wasn’t he the stability? Wasn’t the viability of the club no longer an issue because they had been sold to a very rich man from Dubai? Now, ensconced, it appears he is passing the hat.
‘Over the next few weeks we will be in a position to pay our creditors and move the club forward,’ Fahim told the supporters.
Over the next few weeks? Why not now?
When people have money the world moves fast, as Campbell spotted. Sheik Mansour did not talk about buying Robinho from Real Madrid or bidding for Kaka at AC Milan, he did it. Abramovich did not talk about erasing debt at Stamford Bridge. These are not men who pat their pockets and claim to have left the wallet at home. These are not owners who finance a panicked spending spree by cashing in on the last good outfield player that remains.
It is a funny number, 50 million. You either have it, or you haven’t. Fifty quid, well that’s different; 500 quid, even. Hell, if you need 50 grand there are people you can talk to who will rush the paperwork through to meet a deadline, but the only investors looking to advance £50m are those that think they are going to make double back. What would be the point otherwise? Why risk fifty for a profit of, say, five?
And how is a lender to get a return of significance on Portsmouth? Just about every playing asset has already been stripped and there is a very real chance of relegation and a substantial drop in earning potential.
The Fratton Park site has some value as land, but its sale will leave the club with no home and, as tenants, a significant drop in revenue long term.
Enlarge Sol Campbell
Spotlight: Sol Campbell played just one game with Notts County
The reason the Glazer family were allowed to put Manchester United in hock was because the returns promised to the lenders were magnificent and the guarantee, if it all went wrong, would be ownership of a global brand name. Portsmouth is very different.
West Ham United have ended up in the hands of the creditors of Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, the former owner, and are attempting to walk the fine line between clawing back the money owed and maintaining Barclays Premier League status — with dwindling success, looking at the league table.
It is not easy to get a major return on an investment in an averagely successful football club without placing them, and therefore the whole project, in jeopardy.
The board at Manchester City or Chelsea could pluck the figure of £50m from the air because they have it without borrowing, and it was presumed that Fahim did, too.
For a man whose first business transaction was worth approximately £100m, the subsequent statements concerning Portsmouth do not add up.
No money for transfers until next summer at the earliest. Why? The continued deferment of £10m in outstanding transfer fees until January. Why? An injection of £50m but only after the transfer window has closed and the best players have left. Why?
Some will even ask how Fahim passed the Premier League fit and proper persons test, but there is no suggestion he is involved in illegal activity.
The worst that can be said is that little about his actions convinces that he has a platinum AmEx card, let alone platinum eyeballs, but that alone is no reason for disqualification. There is no rule stating a business must have investment once bought; it is just better if it does.
Campbell was right. When people have money, things happen quickly; and as a high-earning Premier League player throughout his career, the way he left Notts County sort of proved it.
