Al-Fahim and Hart
Contrary to reports from the camp of Sulaiman Al-Fahim (who was introduced as Chairman of Pompey yesterday), the EPL are unconvinced and are moving to block the sale while they investigate the sale further and do all the paperwork.
Why? Well, for one the paperwork hasn’t been fully filed, but it also comes back to a certain exiled Thai politician who’s sniffing around the periphery.
Al-Fahim’s new BFF is the former Citeh dictator, Trashcan Sinatra, and the EPL is understandably wary of him being involved in any way, shape or form with Portsmouth. While Al-Fahim did pass that “fit and proper persons” test the EPL administers to people looking to get involved in club ownership (I’d love to see a copy of that test someday…), they want more time to review. The official statement read: “As with all changes in club ownership, the Premier League will continue to monitor any material changes in circumstance.”
I’m sure their diligence will be oh-so-impressive, too.
So where does Shinawatra come into it?
He’s understood to be living in Dubai and described himself last month as a “close friend” of Sulaiman. In addition, Trashcan’s longtime personal adviser, Pairoj Piempongsant, introduced the pair to one another, and Al-Fahim’s investment company, Al Fahim Asia Associates, has significant backing from Thaksin and his friends back in the Far East.
At the moment, Trashcan is actively trying to distance himself from the Pompey takeover, because any involvement from him would sink the entire ship. He’d fail that “fit and proper” test in a heartbeat… something to do with that whole human rights/corruption/two-year jail sentence in Thailand thing.
Sit tight, Pompey fans. Al-Fahim’s hired/persuaded Paul Hart to sign a two-year deal as manager, and Peter Storrie took a fat wage packet to hang around as Chief Executive. Still, there are only 14 outfield players on the squad at the moment, so pray that this mess gets sorted quickly so Al-Fahim can inject the assumed billions to building a half-decent team.
You know, I’ve got the requisite body hair along with s**tty facial hair that I’m fairly sure I could pass for some sort of Sultan or Sheik or whatever if I got a suntan. That’s it, I’m taking over Tranmere.
Somehow, I doubt you have the checkbook to pass though. And, that’s all they really are interested in. You could be a 400 pound heifer of a woman and if you had a deep pocketbook a team would be interested.
Hey Hicks and Gillett pulled it off without the money, why can’t I? I’ll just pawn some of my DVDs and that should be enough to scrape by.