Re: Portsmouth owner Al-Fahim to sell majority shareholding
the guy leading the consortium he is selling too is Ali al-Faraj, who apparently is the source of the 5m loan that is being used to pay the players. he and his brother apparently bid for portsmouth back in august, but the Gaydamaks refused to sell to them, as Ali's brother is currently sueing Gaydamak senior. Faraj is well off, and on the face of it the kind of owner Pompey probably thought they were getting in the first place.
One theory would be that al-Fahim purchased the club knowing full well he would have to sell it, knowing full well that Faraj would jump at the chance to get his hands on the shares.
Say what you like about Al-Fahim, but if this pans out he will have succesfully fronted two complicated deals that took Premier League clubs out of the hands of extremely dodgy owners. In our case we ended up with the best sort of foreign owner imaginable. It's too early to say what Faraj's intentions are, but I can find no black marks against his name, and he does have the resources to run a premier league club.
The real mystery here is Storrie. He has made a concerted effort to paint himself as the club's saviour, a miracle worker, and has implied that he was the one who would finance the player wages... but I find it amazing that he has implied Al-Fahim has failed to deliver on his promises, within a month of the guy taking over. Doesn't this amount to him saying he allowed himself to be hoodwinked? Surely, as chief exec, he must have had more to go on than promises. Maybe he was put in this position against his will, but still, his account of events is a little odd, to say the least.
And he's still up for questioning along with Redknapp.
