Football Ownership 101: Don't Buy a Club by Stealing Your Wife's Dosh

Think of this as a six-week joyride.

That's how long Abu Dhabi citizen Sulaiman Al Fahim's reign of then-troubled Portsmouth FC lasted.

This was back on 21 July 2009, when Pompey was so desperate for cash, it literally didn't care to see anything beyond it.

Incredibly, the old boys' club that is the Premiership just wanted the embarrassment to end, so they didn't check, either.

 

What's amazing is, who knew an Old School club like Portsmouth could be had for a mere £5million?

Al Fahim was clearly banking on the incredible revenue stream each Premiership club generates merely by being a member of the world's most profitable league.

That's all well and good, but dude forgot a fundamental rule of business success. Gotta have a plan or pay the consequences.

 

Incredibly, the only plan dude had was to dip into the missus's bank account and lift the dosh.

No wonder she didn't have it as a joint account.

What she didn't plan on was her hubby having a complicit bank manager.

 

Who knew the lure of football riches is also the devil's playground?

For a new business venture, counting on borrowed money means living on borrowed time, and the first to have that point driven home in this instance was Pompey itself.

The club's debt was so deep, Al Fahim would've needed another bent bank manager to climb out of it. As it turned out, he also could've used a miracle-working marriage counselor.

 

Hell hath no fury like a woman whose bank account's been scorned.

And now Al Fahim has five years to let that thought sink in.

Luckily for him, he got done in a luxurious country. Odds are its full-service prison is now protecting him from his ex.