Sunday 7th September 2008
City's new owner had eyes on Gunners
Manchester City's sugar daddy Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim wanted to buy Arsenal before turning his sights on the Citizens.
It has now been revealed that the Dubai tycoon met with one of Arsenal's two biggest shareholders a few months ago over talks on pumping in US$360 million into the Gunners' coffers.
Dr Al Fahim, the chief instigator behind Abu Dhabi United Group's US$440 million takeover of City, has since confessed that he 'looked at' Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle before settling on Mark Hughes' City.
According to English broadsheet The Mail on Sunday, meetings did in fact take place between Arsenal's Russian stakeholder Alisher Usmanov earlier this year, with a view to buying his 24 per cent holding.
However, negotiations reached a deadlock after it was reported that The Abu Dhabi United Group would have had to pay a premium on the shares in order to gain a stake at Arsenal but Usmanov was only willing to sell a proportion of his share.
With Usmanov's stakes in the Arsenal board amassing to around US$360 million, a buyout would have ensured that ADUG would have been the biggest stakeholders in the North London club, slightly more than director Danny Fiszman.
With Brazilian winger Robinho joining City on transfer deadline-day for a staggering US$64 million immediately after ADUG did indeed buyout City, it seems that the Gunners could have been able to rely on the extraordinary wealth of Sheik Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the man behind ADUG should the club had bowed to the Arab's request.
However, Fiszman and his fellow directors, such as Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, who owns 15.9 per cent of the club, have agreed to offer first refusal on the sale of any shares to each other before selling out to foreign billionaires in a lockdown agreement which extends until 2012.
