The Financial Times is usually well informed on business matters and has an interesting slant on the failed Charlton bid. It reckons that the head of the Dubai royal family blocked the deal because it might get in the way of his aspirations to buy Liverpool.
The FT says: 'People close to the situation said that the changing UK economic climate was unlikely to have been a significant factor ... Dubai's ability to turn itself into a global trade and business hub may be at risk from the financial crisis, with Moody's, the rating agnecy, estimating that Dubai's debt is close to 100 per cent of gross domestic product.'
The report continues, 'Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Makoum, has long coveted Liverpool FC. The purchase of another English club by Zabeel, a group that is widely acknowledged to be an investment vehicle for his son, Hamdan bin Mohammed al Maktoum, would almost certainly scupper his chances of buying a more prized asset such as the Premier League club.'
I think it might be possible to successfully challenge the conflict of ownership rule in court, but Dubai would not want the adverse publicity in the current context of debate about foreign ownership of clubs.
We should also note that the debate about a two-tier Premiership has been revived. This was an idea in which Richard Murray has expressed interest in the past, no doubt hoping that Charlton could slot into Tier 2. However, as put forward, the plan envisages two divisions of 18 clubs, but no promotion or relegation into the Football League below. Another reason for not becoming a League 1 club.
2 comments:
For what it is worth (probably not much), I posted this speculation about Zabeel's decision on NYA's blog on Thursday.
"My guess is that this is a huge climb down from Zabeel who almost certainly received orders from above to abandon the deal. It would be interesting to know when they got that instruction.
Dubai is not oil rich like big brother Abu Dhabi and has been investing aggressively to become the financial centre for the region (UAE and GCC) as well as in the tourist industry (witness the spectacular Palm Island). Perhaps inevitably given the failure of the global financial system, Dubai has run into liquidity problems and whilst the position is probably very manageable the situation has given Abu Dhabi, Dubai’s defacto lender of last resort, the chance to rein in its upstart little brother. Abu Dhabi has long thought Dubai to be a little too aggressive and no doubt made its point during a recent weekend long, “crisis” meeting of the UAE leadership. Against this background, the leadership in Dubai probably concluded that “sponsoring” an investment company to make a high profile acquisition of an English Football Club wasn’t smart politics (the trivial sum of money wouldn’t have been the issue) and told Zabeel to extricate themselves. Zabeel are probably very embarrassed, but credit to them for complementing Charlton and rubbishing the media talk that they were looking at other clubs.
On the subject of other clubs, I have no doubt that Zabeel are being honest in what they say, but there is a slight possibility that they are being a little disingenuous. An alternative explanation for their withdrawal is that another Dubai based company or consortium is still interested in buying an English Club, almost certainly Liverpool, and that the conflict of interest accusation risk, notwithstanding the different legal entities, ruled out a bid by Zabeel for Charlton. On balance, I doubt this possibility somehow and am more inclined to conclude that the American owners of Liverpool are “stuffed”. Anyway, if this is what is going on we'll find out soon.
Bottom line is we’ve been very unlucky. Had Zabeel made their indicative offer two weeks sooner the deal would probably have been done. Such is fate, but life goes on and many clubs have much bigger challenges than we do."
I saw your post on NYA and thought it was worth a lot. In particular you draw attention to the tensions that exist between the different Emirates. All one can say is that this is typical Charlton bad luck. Sometimes I do fear for the future of the club. There was a time when I thought we could re-capture the success of the years immediately before and after the Second World War.
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