There is a new Blue kit in town...
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Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan has a deep love of sport and deeper pockets
He may be an unknown on the Hyde Road, but Manchester City fans will soon come to recognise Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan - the real tycoon behind yesterday’s extraordinary takeover and one of the world’s richest and most powerful men.
The brother of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, the biggest of the United Arab Emirates, he has an estimated family fortune of about $1trillion (£555billion) to buy foreign assets alone. Sources said last night he has a personal wealth of “many, many billions of dollars”, apparently putting the £11.7billion firepower of Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich in the shade.
The family’s wealth is derived from oil which, when it was discovered in Abu Dhabi in 1958, started the transformation of a nation of fishermen into a powerful state. The burgeoning coffers have been swollen by the recently surging oil price. It is estimated that every time the price of oil goes up by a $1, Abu Dhabi gains as much as $500 million a day.
With a population of three million, it is far more than the emirate can spend so, as with other cash-rich nations, the spare cash is siphoned off into sovereign wealth funds – big pools of cash that are used to buy foreign assets in preparation for when the oil runs out.
Abu Dhabi has three main funds which control about $1trillion. A recent investment was New York’s Chrysler Building and it owns a stake in Ferrari. The Al Nayhan family is synonymous with Abu Dhabi’s wealth and it is with his personal bank account that Sheikh Mansour has spent £210million on buying the 90 per cent Manchester City stake.
Sheikh Mansour has a deep love of sport – he is chairman of Al Jazeera Football Club and chairman of the Emirates Horse Racing Authority. He is a key political figure and is a member of the UAE Federal Cabinet and Minister of Presidential Affairs. In business, he is chairman of First Gulf Bank and chairman of the International Petroleum Investment Company.
He is married to the similarly fabulously wealthy Sheikha Manal bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. But despite this relationship, there is an intense rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the smaller but more entrepreneurial neighbour, who are way ahead in the race to become the global business and sports centre in the region.
Abu Dhabi has made no secret of its desire to catch up and it is this desire to tap into top sporting knowledge may also explain the lightning speed with which Sheikh Mansour snapped up the stake in Manchester City. It was only at the beginning of the summer that Thaksin Shinawatra made it known to a few trusted allies that he wanted to sell his stake. By July, he had begun early negotiations with three Gulf investors, who are currently unknown.
In Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mansour had been looking to invest in a Premier League club for a while. He caught wind of the deal and asked a trusted associate, Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim, chief executive of Hydra Properties, to approach Thaksin on his behalf.
Astonishingly it was actually only three weeks ago that the charismatic Arab businessman approached Thaksin with an offer to buy the club at a premium. Thaksin immediately saw the seriousness of the approach and sought expert advice from Amanda Staveley, the glamorous private financier who came to prominence recently for advising Sheikh Maktoum on his protracted bid for Liverpool.
The negotiations with City were kept top secret, although careful observers of Manchester City’s directors’ box at the game against West Ham on Aug 24 would have been given a clue. In the box Thaksin was flanked by Ali Jassem, a trusted adviser of Dr Al Fahim and behind him was Staveley.
The finer details were thrashed out last week before Staveley flew to Abu Dhabi at the weekend to conclude the deal late on Sunday.
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Manchester City's audacious swoop for Brazilian is a warning to Roman Abramovich
Manchester City have agreed the biggest and most dramatic deal in English football history by concluding a £32.5 million transfer with Real Madrid for the Brazilian striker Robinho.
The move that should see Robinho partner his countryman, Jo, was concluded with 45 minutes of the transfer window remaining.
Because of the last-minute nature of the deal – and City’s inability to get the player to Manchester for a medical before the window closed – there was provision for a loan arrangement until a permanent transfer could be organised, though ultimately the deal went through and the arrangement was not needed.
City’s new owners, Abu Dhabi United, have given Roman Abramovich a dramatic illustration of the new order in the Premier League. The Chelsea owner, on learning that Madrid were prepared to let Robinho go to Eastlands, made direct contact with the Bernabeu only to learn that Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon would not do business with his club. Ironically Robinho’s first game for Manchester City will be against Chelsea.
Although they were angered beyond measure by the 24-year-old’s recent press conference, in which he stated that “my heart is already at Stamford Bridge”, both Calderon and his manager, Bernt Schuster, had pledged to keep Robinho in La Liga.
However, once they received an improved offer from Manchester City they agreed the deal, while making dramatic late overtures to Valencia in a desperate attempt to secure the services of David Villa, the top-scorer at Euro 2008.
In the end, Calderon accepted that £32.5 million was a fair price for a man who had scored 25 times in 101 appearances for Madrid.
“We agreed to sell the player for human and for sporting reasons – and for a significant quantity of money,” Calderon said last night. “After contacting our technical staff, we decided that it would be in the best interests of the squad and the club that he should go.”
Villa was one of a scattergun of Europe’s leading strikers that Manchester City targeted in the first day of Middle Eastern ownership. They bid for Stuttgart’s Mario Gomez and had a £34 million-plus offer accepted by Tottenham for Dimitar Berbatov.
However, while Stuttgart ignored the offer for the Bundesliga’s leading scorer last season, and neither Berbatov nor Manchester United had any intention of allowing a meeting with Manchester City’s representatives, Madrid were prepared to negotiate.
When news that Manchester City had agreed to break the English transfer record for Berbatov was announced, their manager, Mark Hughes, said that whatever the outcome of a frenetic night, it had been a “statement of intent”. So it was, and nowhere was it felt more deeply than at Stamford Bridge.
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Sheikh Mansour: the facts about the man behind Manchester City takeover
A few of the essential statistics about the latest billionaire to take a stake in the Premier League.
He is the son of the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the late first president and principal architect of the United Arab Emirates. He is a member of the UAE Federal Cabinet and the Minister of Presidential Affairs. He is also president of Al Jazeera Football Club and chairman of the Emirates Horse Racing Authority (EHRA).
The Abu Dhabi United Group is part of the oil rich state’s sovereign wealth fund ADIA which manages £500billion of assets and is the world’s second biggest institutional investor, behind the Bank of Japan, according to the Oxford Business Group.
Abu Dhabi manages oil reserves worth an estimated $1trillion (£555billion).
Abu Dhabi bought a 5 per cent stake in Ferrari for £91million in July 2005 in a bid to lure Formula One to hold a race in the UAE's most powerful emirate.
Sovereign wealth funds are pools of money created by the sale of state-owned assets, such as oil, and deployed for investment, often abroad.
£210m
The deal for Manchester City.
Wasn't this guy the one interested to buy Liverpool before the 2 Ang Mo came? Even as recently they were still considering buying Pool... Phew... Luck they didn't go to Pool...
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wow.. a new chelsea uprising.. worst still, its MUFC rivals.. pffffft...
Come on everyone, lets say how many years before City wins BPL? I say next season they snap up all the good players with their cash and win BPL next season lawls..
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Its not that easy i feel... But with £555billion to Roman's £11.7billion... Anything can happen. As they say, money talks...
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No the limpingfools investors are DIC from Dubai not Abu Dhabi...
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wah knn to Ramon Calderon!!
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Originally posted by zocoss:
Its not that easy i feel... But with £555billion to Roman's £11.7billion... Anything can happen. As they say, money talks...
black gold again, huh?
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Originally posted by deathwish:
No the limpingfools investors are DIC from Dubai not Abu Dhabi...
Its about the same lah... Both are from UAE... This Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan...He is married to the similarly fabulously wealthy Sheikha Manal bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. But despite this relationship, there is an intense rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the smaller but more entrepreneurial neighbour, who are way ahead in the race to become the global business and sports centre in the region.
Dubai will want to buy a premiership club also very soon to out do each other for the Middle East sports centre in the region... See who they will buy... Let's hope its not Pool...
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Muslim VS Jews
now the prophercy has become real..
but will what the Green book revelation come true?
will Muslim destroy the Jews?Stay tune to BPL 2010/2011 to find out!
Brought to you by, Football Channel. -
And the English and Americans (Arsenal, Liverpool & United) leading the crusade ?
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Waa why they nv buy LFC?
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Next season is not soccer liao.. obviously is Religon liao.. woo hoo..
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i dun quite agreed that its a show of might in Robinho's transfer, i would believe anyone who comes in with a bid close or slightly higher then Chelsea's would get Robinho.. Real just got sick of him just that they didn't wanna sell to chelsea.. but this should pissed Roman quite a fair bit, lets see if they can trash Real if they happened to meet in the CL this season... crossing finger and praying..