dubai_phil

I did have a chuckle, one idea (The Lounge) is the Crown Prince of Qatar. That fits, they have the Aspire Academy and will look at leveraging their own development aims. The fun and games will start when the benefical owner test comes up... Who owns Notts County? Munto Finance Who owns Munto Finance? As I said in the Lounge, oops

Oops That may be a problem. He's the Crown Prince of Qatar They already own a football club

Here you go dubai_phil Full Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Getting the Killer Attack Tortoises into shape Posts: 5,683 Quote: Originally Posted by Eyes k8 According to the Mirror quoting Storrie, it's not Al Fahim but an individual from a family in the middle east. I know you've got your ear to the sand Phil, any rumours out there as to who? Well, if they're from Saudi ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...0bn-fraud.html From Dubai, then the release of figures last week of the debt level at Dubai Holding has pushed estimates of the debt Dubai quasi Gov operations up to around $100BILLION. Much of the local families were heaviliy into property (obviously) but funded through Eurobonds which are starting to come up so their problems are pretty simple. http://business.maktoob.com/20090000...er&utm_content= The local banking sector has all but dried up sources of lending, so that locals cannot leverage their book assets, most of the others will have their money tied up in securities and that leaves you looking for having to sell stocks to raise cash. The Bahrainis have looked at investment but at a low and grow level, the Qataris have already jumped in with both feet with Notts County, people from football have been banging down the doors in Kuwait for years (including Ashley when he was wealthy). The Saudi's have also looked in detail at football, and a number of research projects were under way before the crash last year and one of those looked to continue as they were in behind the scenes talks with one of this season's CCC clubs So, that would leave SBT with his only real contacts - the Abu Dhabi families. He burnt his bridges with them over the Man City deal, would the FA be so stupid as to allow a cousin or uncle of His Excellency Sheikh Khalifa to buy a club? And would a local business family WANT to go head to head with the ruler of his country? What could happen if Man City played them needing 4 clear goals and 3 points at the end of the season to get into the CL.... (don't use British standards when answering that) The only other possible names linked to ownership are H.E. Sheikh Mohammed (very publicly with Liverpool in the past) and less publicly his brother Sheikh Ahmed was allude to by SBT previously. There is simply no way that the ruler of Dubai would look to blow $250 million on a football club at this point in time. They have a team working very hard to re-build the PR image of Dubai and are putting a huge amount of effort and what little funds they have left into sorting out the problems here. That leaves Sheikh Ahmed, who as CEO of Emirates could have the personal wealth and marketing budget. However, they also see no benefit in getting into a p*ssing contest with Etihad and Abu Dhabi. They have a lot of people with the skills and experience to do something in football, but again, unlike SBT, they have a touch of PR sense as well. This one is a possibility, but I would be very surprised. As I mentioned before, the Value Add scenario simply does not fit any messaging that Emirates or Dubai would want to show in the current climate. So the only other source would be a Dubai family with an issue politically. The Al Habtoors, are one of those, but they were never really interested unless there was a $750million plus property project related to the purchase. SBT's two sources of funds were Thaksin or Abu Dhabi. It looks as if it was hoped that an SPV could have been constructed to hide the "Beneficial Owner", but the FA weren't THAT stupid All IMHO of course and based on analysis, friends, contacts and local media sources

That narrows it down to an area about 3 times the size of Europe and a population of around 200 million. I did analyse the possibles on one of these two threads a couple of days ago will look to see if I can find it. I did seek clarification from my sources on one name about 5 or 6 weeks ago, it could be him as I received silence in return, but the politics and PR angle doesn't seem right. Questions would be asked if it was him Also know for a fact that some people in Israel were looking to buy a south coast club a few months back (think it was in the Echo - lol) One off the wall bet an outsider if you like - you lot are to blame for the row with the Yanks, could be a son of Tripoli. As in a you sort this problem out & we'll buy the sk*tes for you.

Health & Safety Inspectors are today reacting with shock to the news that a Southampton Footballer apparently exceeded the maximum jump height regulations at the St Mary's Stadium. A spokesman for HSE reacted with surprise to the photographs today. "We felt that we had a good working relationship with the club for the past 3 years and that they had agreed to restrict all their players to a maximum jump height of 1foot 8inches, which we have deemed to be safe for workers at the club. This picture clearly shows we may have a problem with the new management trying to implement Footballing processes. I am sure after we explain the situation they will re-implement the Award Winning safety first programme of the previous regimes.."

Now now chaps Don't mix your non-PC's. Repeat after me, Gay is not a world that exists in Islam

My apologies WSS, let me be more simple. I commented on the annoucement of Al Fahim expressing an interest in buying Sk*tes on Day One. I laughed, a lot. That comment was based on my experiences but also research into sources of finance for football in this region. Call that an old hobby if you like. In simple terms, I was surprised at the lack of due dilligence and research carried out by the Sk*tes. I was not 100% certain that Al Fahim would not be able to go through, but I was pretty damned sure. Did nobody actually LOOK at those clips of his TV show? Did they not see what happened at Hydra? Did they not see what happened at Man City? Did they not ask one simple question - where is his money coming from? No, they all just partied and popped up on here to take the p*ss. Did they (ie Storrie) not understand the issue about ego? Did they not understand that all those "arrogant instructions and deadlines" would simply make the deal fall apart even quicker? I have expressed that opinion through sarcasm because there have been no facts available, but I have posted links to items such as You-Tube and other supportive articles, as well as to take the p*ss out of our fishy friends while their confidence in being bought by a zillionaire has diminshed. I don't have it in for the Boys in Blue, as much as have it in for their completely OTT reaction at the time. Anybody who ever trys to do business in the Middle East must understand that it is an alien land with alien belief systems, values and motivations in every aspect of life. It is however, actually a very simple place to do business, but Europeans have been so ingrained by politics, processes and legislation that they make things so much more "pompous, arrogant and self important" than they actually are. If you like I am showing a mirror to reflect that the biggest failing of Political Correctness is to be terrified of "causing insult" when in fact the secret of PC should be to actually "Understand". Do you not understand that the population (of all races and religions) LAUGH at things like the ridiculous Burkini stories and other PC gone mad. You guys are so dulled by it you all just shrug your shoulders. But that "Little Englander" type mindset is the one that caused our friends to make a mistake of Wilde proportions that may well have cost them their club's existence. The article I posted refers to yet another "European Businessman" who was so totally naive when he started to do business here that 1) he didn't even realise he would not own his own business and 2) had to resort to the most ludicrous means to actually get out of here. It is a very close analogy to what Peter Storrie has done as did others before him. That was entirely consistent with my previous points. So, Portsmouth are in real trouble because the takeover has not gone through. The point everyone is missing is the most simple one. Nobody at Portsmouth took the time to truly understand the nature and motivations and background of who they were dealing with, they simply did not understand HOW to get the deal done and more importantly even understand if the deal existed. I am constantly digging back and reminding our fishy friends of their Let's Go Wilde with the open arm welcome to Al Fahim and their look at us you got Jacko attitude. You may THINK this is all irrelevant, but like I have mentioned, there are a lot of stories in the mess that was left behind, but this one point about "looking at a business situation with a different perspective" may well have damaged Portsmouth. It also damaged Charlton, it certainly damaged Mike Ashley and that trail about understanding differing business mentalities runs into a lot of surprising places, not least of all into SMS with our new owners. If the fans start to understand the experience and methodology of our new owner and leadership, they can make valid points and suggestions and will understand why things happen when they do. Not my job to teach that, my job is to keep taking the p*ss out of or undermining the belief of the blue few. Go back and read where NC worked if you think this "garbage" about understanding is all so irrelevant. So there you go, I'm back to p*ss taking now, not a dig back, you made a fair point How long to the transfer window closes for our friends? :smt051

What a top thread, has raised some interesting points, not least the crucial one about throwing the shoulder at the top of the swing. Is this what causes the snap hook? Mini-tour golf, just reminded me of the crazy golf scene in Happy Gilmour Oh and a nice baiting of the hook by 19C As for the OP, c'mon, don't act all surprise that someone was spouting off rubbish at the football. Jeez, you've been here long enough to know that we ALL do it. Perhaps your man is just a forum poster with one of those voice recognition packages.. Wasn't Alps at the game? Oh and finally, after the story on Sky News yesterday, hope not too many of our casually dressed youth travel to France in the near future in their fake designer gear, be a bit embarrassing for them having it confiscated and flying back to Eastleigh in a towel Just kidding Alp's :-)

Strange, I thought it was Kyle McLaggon. Shows how little I know these days. Hopefully one plus side of his injury could be that he was spared the over-exposure and pain of last season, and with careful handling this year by professionals his development can procede in a way that he can become the finished article much quicker

Priceless - Ponting spitting blood at the state of the pitch & his decision to leave out Hauritz! AV IT as the sign kept saying

I normally keep my business updates to the main forum thread, but this one deserves to be here. It seems clear now that Mr Al Fahim's plans for his takeover at Portsmouth were thwarted when his elaborate plan to get his bonus cheque out of the Emirate began to unravel. It seems his mysterious partner was unable to use the preferred method of currency exchange due to technical issues with the specialised stealth deleivery systems. These faults seem to have escalated into a problem for more than our Donald Trump wannabe, and look to be proving to be yet another own goal in Dubai's current problems with global PR. For the full story...... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/6074279/With-scuba-gear-under-a-burka-French-spy-Herve-Jaubert-made-his-escape-from-Dubai.html You just gotta love this crazy place and the naive Europeans

Good to see you back up and around Morph. Did you hear the extremely unconfirmed rumour that we did approach someone to be SD and the rest? Not worth commenting on more than that as it was way too vague and those were the words as they came down here to me, no more, but I am in FF's camp, I think the right person coming in for the right reasons will be a big step in putting the back office side of our club back together again, which appears in as big a mess as our playing squad have been

Fantastic, the pitch was dodgy but it produced great cricket and tension, thank God the Aussies batted like puppets in the first innings. That whole last hour was just wonderful to sit and watch... And was I the only one to notice that Freddie wasn't seen on tv swigging champers or even holding one? And Colly pretending to drop the Urn... Tear in the eye stuff, marvellous to watch, hoped for but so unexpected after Headingley

Phew, had time away from the box came back, made a cup of tea, sat down and Freddie does the business, great work be Prior for the stumping as well...

Adding to the debate, I'm not happy at our start, but I did expect it. We had a bunch of kids who were taught to play PL style football - they were never going to hack it in this league from the off. We played two of the 'more fancied" TEAMS in the league. We had players who probably had never seen SMS before yesterday on the pitch We played a team still in the bubble of promotion, they ALL punch above their weight for a while - heck, how many games did we used to lose at the Dell against newly promoted sides? Burnley this year anyone? So, no not happy, yes it needs to be turned around REALLY quickly, yes I think it\s quite clear AP understands this and has told us so, yes I do think it will turn around, and finally, no I never believed for one minute we would get to a playoff place and nothing I have heard so far changes that. But then AP & NC & ML all but told us that when they bought the club, so why the total panic? Most medication to cure most diseases takes time to work. The time for the quick jab was 3 years ago, but we kept changing Doctors

Actually you can work with and understand the culutral differences, but the problem is always that Brits have an oh so superior attitude and exepct the world to work their way... demanding Watney's bleedin Red Ball while on holiday in Malaga was the classic example. But if you have people in charge who actually listen rather than talk then it can work out very well. Your only chance from this part of the world is possibly Israeli money.... Oh you've been there haven't you

Would expect the new consortium finance to be Israeli. Probably Tony Fialka called up his mates

Don't worry about that, the Sky crew pointed out it would be the biggest score EVER achieved in first class cricket, let alone Tests! They were having great fun commenting about Gentlemen v Players being something like 497 back in 1900. One of the scores at the top of the list was posted in 189something. You can't be THAT old? Mind you we may all age a bit in the next 8 hours without a breaktrhough before lunch!

Well, if they're from Saudi ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6074549/Saudi-families-square-up-over-20bn-fraud.html From Dubai, then the release of figures last week of the debt level at Dubai Holding has pushed estimates of the debt Dubai quasi Gov operations up to around $100BILLION. Much of the local families were heaviliy into property (obviously) but funded through Eurobonds which are starting to come up so their problems are pretty simple. http://business.maktoob.com/20090000360291/UAE_property_prices_fall_in_Q2;_revival_off/Article.htm?utm_campaign=Day-Newsletter&utm_medium=Main-News1&utm_source=Day-Newsletter&utm_content= The local banking sector has all but dried up sources of lending, so that locals cannot leverage their book assets, most of the others will have their money tied up in securities and that leaves you looking for having to sell stocks to raise cash. The Bahrainis have looked at investment but at a low and grow level, the Qataris have already jumped in with both feet with Notts County, people from football have been banging down the doors in Kuwait for years (including Ashley when he was wealthy). The Saudi's have also looked in detail at football, and a number of research projects were under way before the crash last year and one of those looked to continue as they were in behind the scenes talks with one of this season's CCC clubs So, that would leave SBT with his only real contacts - the Abu Dhabi families. He burnt his bridges with them over the Man City deal, would the FA be so stupid as to allow a cousin or uncle of His Excellency Sheikh Khalifa to buy a club? And would a local business family WANT to go head to head with the ruler of his country? What could happen if Man City played them needing 4 clear goals and 3 points at the end of the season to get into the CL.... (don't use British standards when answering that) The only other possible names linked to ownership are H.E. Sheikh Mohammed (very publicly with Liverpool in the past) and less publicly his brother Sheikh Ahmed was allude to by SBT previously. There is simply no way that the ruler of Dubai would look to blow $250 million on a football club at this point in time. They have a team working very hard to re-build the PR image of Dubai and are putting a huge amount of effort and what little funds they have left into sorting out the problems here. That leaves Sheikh Ahmed, who as CEO of Emirates could have the personal wealth and marketing budget. However, they also see no benefit in getting into a p*ssing contest with Etihad and Abu Dhabi. They have a lot of people with the skills and experience to do something in football, but again, unlike SBT, they have a touch of PR sense as well. This one is a possibility, but I would be very surprised. As I mentioned before, the Value Add scenario simply does not fit any messaging that Emirates or Dubai would want to show in the current climate. So the only other source would be a Dubai family with an issue politically. The Al Habtoors, are one of those, but they were never really interested unless there was a $750million plus property project related to the purchase. SBT's two sources of funds were Thaksin or Abu Dhabi. It looks as if it was hoped that an SPV could have been constructed to hide the "Beneficial Owner", but the FA weren't THAT stupid All IMHO of course and based on analysis, friends, contacts and local media sources

I think I mentioned that AP has to work out very quickly where the RM position will be filled from. The problem and the decision AP now has to make is simple. Will any of this squad give us that width and pace? If not then we need more in and fast. We do not need "wingers" on both sides, but what we do need is a player who actually knows what he is doing at RM. Let's face it, Beckham was never a winger at Man U but he was a useful RM, and CMFG on the left could never have been called a wide man, but he WAS experienced, had a brain and was suited to playing on the edge of midfield. (In fact he often looked like a fish out of water when he was swictched to play CM) Clearly from his comments AP is aware of the issue. He will be working out how long Holmes/Mills are likely to be out for, but I would guess that LM is not where we need to strengthen. Again, we've read negative reports from games for the past 5 years or so, but the Echo & Pardew's comments show that we have at least started to add some building blocks to the foundations, so while this is not happy clappy time, the knee jerks do seem a little over the top I think once AP makes his mind up about James/Lallana/Gobern/Thompson and whether any of them really can be salvaged for this season on the right, we'll have the beginning of the makings of a good solid side.

Didn't listen to the game. But read the complaints about the lack of width (again) We lost Dyer & Surman who at least had experience of playing wide, our only other wide player is Holmes who is Darren Anderton at the moment, and MAYBE Fish Mills. I read the criticism of AP about not using width, but at the end of the day, as I said before the game, we don't HAVE any wide players with experience. Even Gobern who shows promise has only started about 5 games so he is not the answer over a season. Last year the kids played without wide players. Before that under GB we had next to nothing (ie BWP sometimes) on the wing. Jeez, it takes EVERYONE time to adjust to change, or to learn a new job at work. The problem and the decision AP now has to make is simple. Will any of this squad give us that width and pace? If not then we need more in and fast. Because even The Special One won't get them playing if they aren't bright enough to understand what is being asked of them? (Oh and also just to point out that half the squad probably don't even know each other's names yet)

Yep, he probably doesn't let them train while wearing Ipods They likely have to hang up their bling, and park their motors in the car park rather than drive to the edge of the training pitch He's probably taken out the PS3's and the Schreiber furniture from the Players lounge and no doubt he has started getting them to do press ups and laps around the pitch when they make a mistake. Which as most observers of the past 3 seasons would probably be able to tell any of us means that it hurts them as they are so unfit. When you next talk to your player contact, tell him -"The fans said about effing time too" This is a sodding FOOTBALL CLUB, not effing Butlins They're getting "pretty p*ssed off" with the changes - you know what? - better still, tell us his name so we can tell HIM what we think of their soft cushy life

Being one of life's sceptics, I wonder if that news is why the Americans are so annoyed? Hmmm

What a great day for England, even watching Jimmy Anderson taking the p*ss at the end. Well done Trott. The heavy roller seems to take the life out the pitch for a couple of hours so would expect to see fun and games starting around lunchtime tomorrow. Strauss almost acknowledged that with his field settings. Had a load of work to do today but just sat and enjoyed, the tension and the nurdling in the morning and the splatting at the end. Can't believe we got a lead over 500, if you'd told us that at the beginning we'd have called for men with white suits. But after their start, damned glad we DO have that lead. Let tomorrow be Freddie's day though, c'mon on Big Man upstairs, just this once, PLEASE can we have a happy ending and a perfect send off to tell our grandkids about? PLEASE?

You're not worth 150mil. Sorry. Other clubs with developed infrastructure are on the market for less, who also have an upside potential medium/long term for development of property or other "incremental revenue streams". You need a stadium build, you want 40,000 so using the basic maths thats what it cost us - 32,000/32mil plus inflation of say 20% you need close to 48mil build cost. Then you need the land, ours was free, yours? So the undisclosed debt is way above 25 mil, and your squad is shorn of the players and needs another 25 mil to stay up in the next 7 days So, no land, no idea on the debts other than Standard and not enough players (14 fit first teamers - Paul Hart) So ground 48, known debt and squad 50, already you are at the limit of what your competition for buyers is at. Add the cost of buying any land, and in all likelihood more debt due to PL clubs.... That's your problem. SBT does not have the funds, think that is pretty clear now to everyone. Why did I laugh when you all started getting excited about him and when you all commented on him turning up at Fratton for tea and sandwiches all those months back? I tell you, the truth's gonna REALLY hurt. :cool: So, you could be bought, but I really don't think you'll get bought with the funding for a stadium in the CURRENT climate, which means you won't get the World Cup and you will have to live in your means on 20,000 crowds. Either you'll all be paying 3 grand a year for ST's or ........ Oh, as for that budgetted figure, did I ever mention I think our boys have a damned good business plan? And good luck to them with it I say