Ali Al Faraj has made headlines all over the world the last few weeks with his purchase of Premier League club Portsmouth. Ironically, the head of the Saudi Arabia league, Dr. Hafez Al Medlej, claims that until just as recently as the public eye he never knew who Al Faraj even was:
I hope Al Faraj has success, but we never heard of this guy. I asked my friends and no-one knows him. For three days, I see there is no picture of him in the Saudi papers. If he comes with the money and leaves the management to those who know about it then that’s good.
Al Medlej brings up a few valid points. First off, if he had never heard of someone with the kind of money that the new Portmouth owner has then imagine how many other potential investors there could be in the area. Currently three Premier League clubs are linked with middle-eastern investors including Al Faraj with Portsmouth, the Abu Dhabi United Group with Manchester City, and recently Prince Faisal bin Fahd bin Abdullah al-Saud has been linked with a potential majority share owner of Liverpool. If he does buy in more then we will nickname him the New Prince for the sake of brevity.
Al Medlej believes that one day over ten Premier League teams may be primarily run by middle-eastern investors which takes us to our second point that Al Medlej made. As long as these teams are still being run the right way and keep winning football as the primary objective then who really cares who is the one spending the money.
Because like Al Medlej said:
There was no harm done for Manchester United being taken over by Americans. So why not? If the businessman will come, inject the money and leave football decisions to the football people then it’s no problem.
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