A roundup of today's other soccer news in brief
Portsmouth miss out on McAllister
GARY MCALLISTER, the former Leeds United and Coventry City coach, will not be joining struggling Portsmouth as assistant manager, the Premier League clubs manager Paul Hart said yesterday.
“We couldn’t agree anything. He was the man I wanted, so it’s disappointing,” said Hart.
Portsmouth are bottom of the Premier League having lost their opening seven matches, the worst start by a team in the top flight since Manchester United in 1930-31.
American duo look for new investment at Liverpool
GEORGE GILLETT and Tom Hicks have confirmed they intend to end their joint-ownership of Liverpool, with the Americans expected to begin that process by sanctioning an equity raise that will dilute their 50 per cent stakes in the Anfield club.
The Liverpool co-chairmen issued a rare joint statement last night to refute claims that Prince Faisal bin Fahad bin Abdulla of Saudi Arabia is in talks to purchase a 50 per cent holding in the club. They also confirmed they have employed separate banks to flush out new investors in Liverpool.
Hicks and Gillett were prompted to act amid reports Prince Faisal had begun due diligence on the club’s books ahead of a possible €383 million investment. The Saudi prince was a guest of Gillett at Liverpool’s game against Hull City last Saturday but the club owners are mystified at repeated claims he will buy into Liverpool.
Prince Faisal has, however, signed a memorandum of understanding with Gillett regarding the American’s Nascar interests and to sponsor Liverpool youth academies in Saudi Arabia and north Africa.
The joint statement read: “The owners have jointly retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Rothschild to evaluate the possibility of new investors injecting equity into LFC. However, the process is at an early stage, there is no agreement with any party and reports to the contrary are wholly inaccurate.”
The American owners are under pressure from the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia to reduce the club’s debt of over €268 million.
Mystery deepens over Leeds’ owners
THE MYSTERY surrounding the ownership of Leeds United has deepened after the club’s chairman, Ken Bates, admitted that he had made “an error” when he said in January that he jointly owned the club.
Bates had previously informed a court in Jersey that he and his long-term financial adviser, Patrick Murrin, each held one “management share” in Forward Sports Fund, the Cayman Islands-registered company which owns Leeds.
Yet in an affidavit sworn for the same court in May, Bates stated that in fact he does not have any shares in Forward at all.
His previous statement, that he had been the joint owner, was “not correct,” he said, and “an error on my part.
Coming in the wake of the controversy surrounding Notts County’s own mysterious ownership, the revelation that Leeds have unnamed offshore owners, will now prompt pressure on the Football League to investigate.
The affidavit, sworn in a legal action Leeds are bringing against a Jersey-based company, Admatch, attached a letter from the director of Chateau Fiduciaire, financial administrators of Forward, based in Geneva. The letter said there are 10,000 “participating shares” in Forward, and the owners will not be revealed because Chateau Fiduciaire protects its clients’ anonymity unless ordered by a court to disclose them.
