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THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE is an extract from recently released book, The Deal: Inside the World of a Super-Agent.
An ownership group in Odessa had approached Italian agent Roberto De Fanti – who had until January of that year been Director of Football at Sunderland – to express an interest in buying Sheffield Wednesday.
Roberto had become a respected acquaintance of ours through previous dealings and we had strong links to Wednesday’s then owner Milan Mandaric through my friend and associate Peter Storrie.
Milan and Peter worked together at Portsmouth. The financial implosion of that club and a separate court case, in which both stood trial on two counts of tax evasion, meant their futures in the game were uncertain until their acquittals in 2012.
I had taken Peter on as a consultant because I respected his experience, contacts and numerical ability. He remained close with Milan, who had bought Wednesday in 2010 but was keen to sell four years later because he felt the club had reached a natural point in its evolution where a new, younger owner would be better suited.
My personal interest in making this deal happen deepened due to a longstanding friendship with Lord Sebastian Coe, who grew up in Sheffield and has an affinity with Wednesday despite his widely known allegiance to Chelsea.
He often joked to me that if I ever helped sell the club, he would perhaps consider becoming chairman.
Roberto told me this investment group had owned teams in Ukraine but were keen to buy an English club. The concern was that they actually wanted to get some of their cash — wherever it had come from — out of Ukraine and thought a football club in the UK would be a good, safe home for it. As they had experience in owning clubs, they wanted to find a team with a potential real-estate play and they saw Sheffield Wednesday as having that capacity.
Calls were going backwards and forwards and I had to decide whether it was worth the risk to travel. They would not come to the United Kingdom; we had to go to them.
I had spoken to Richard Creitzman, who was working on Roman Abramovich’s team when they bought Chelsea. Richard had been one of the passengers on the notorious helicopter flight over London in 2003, in which — so the story goes — the Abramovich team was about to complete the purchase of Chelsea, when they flew past Fulham’s Craven Cottage.
The ground was being redeveloped at the time with Fulham playing at Loftus Road. The grass had grown out to a foot high in places and, in tandem with the beginnings of stadium renovation work, Fulham’s charming home looked unusually ramshackle. Richard pointed towards the shabby sight before them. ‘That’s Chelsea down there,’ he said. Roman’s eyes widened in disbelief.
‘Only joking – that’s really Fulham,’ Richard said. ‘Don’t joke,’ Roman said in that steely manner of his.
The Deal: Inside the World of a Super-Agent by Jon Smith is published by Little Brown. More info here.
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Excellent news
Rocket missed the moon and landed in Palestine instead, whoops!
@Dave Murphy: hahaha
Superb effort. Was following it live. Things went wrong when they were within 140 odd ft or so of the surface. Failure is part of all success stories. They’ll be back.
@Clifford Brennan: I imagine that if they diverted even some of their missile fund directed at the Palestinians towards the moon effort they might get better results in every arena. But what would I know.
@Cal Mooney: Who do you think “they” is? The project was privately funded, genius. What would you know, is right!
@Cal Mooney: If Palestinians stop throwing Rocks and Rockets, could achieve a lot more than Tunneling.!!
@ÓDuibhír Abú: A child throws a rock at an Israeli tank, they are classified as terrorists. If a tank fires into a group of children, the Israelis claim self defense. You cannot occupy or control all aspects of any people and not expect them to resist. Look how Palestinians are murdered by the Israeli army in the West bank every year. Over 700 children between the ages of 5 and 12 are arrested and imprisoned by the Israelis in the West bank every year.
@Cal Mooney: Jesus, you do believe everything you read!
@Seamus Murphy:
No profile pic? Are you one of the Israeli embassy keyboard warriors with fake profiles?
@Clifford Brennan: Success equals failure on a budget that ballooned by 1000%?
@Dow Dubrov: For a first attempt at reaching and landing on the moon? Yes absolutely.
@Seamus Murphy: The figures vary. Cal’s figures are from Palestinian sources. Israeli organisation B’Tselem does a monthly breakdown showing approximately 300-400 minors under the age of 18 at any given month in Israeli detention. Middle East Monitor gives a figure of 400. But, no matter which of those figures are correct, it is a disproportionate amount of minors to be detained by Israeli authorities. These are, after all, children. And, as was pointed out above, a child throws a rock and he’s deemed a terrorist, but a tank fires a shell towards Palestinian civilian areas and suddenly that’s self-defence. Do you not think that’s a bit OTT?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: it’s not just their detention. Israel is the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections.
@Cormac Ó Braonáin: indeed, that is correct. And those children’s only legal defence team is typically appointed to them by the very same military that incarcerated them in the first place, thereby rendering any semblance of due process – not that there was much to begin with – null and void.
@Seamus Murphy: i believe things I’ve seen and people I’ve spoken to. Have any of that are posting vile Israeli supporting bs been to Palestine? Spoken to anyone? Been searched at border check points? Nah. Course you haven’t.
@Clifford Brennan: I suppose you believe in the moon landing of 69?
@james boylan: You hit the nail on the head. He just ducks in & out with poor weak comments and no substance. Most people now realise he’s a fake.
Incredible attempt for such a small country. Also attempting it for so little money definitely benefited space exploration. Incredible country!
@Nathan Mawhinney: Incredible country … unbelievable country … absurd country … a country gone too far or that never should have been … a catastrophic mistake of a country … a blot on civilisation … a disaster that brings war after war after war but the US says … here’s a few bucks kid … go kill somebody and spread democracy.
@Denis McClean: war declared on them! Not the other way round. Hamas, who run Gaza, are constantly trying to wipe out ‘the jewish scourge’ … what’s wrong with irish people not acknowledging this. Yes! Israel are way too heavy handed in their response, but hamas knows what it’s doing, they always provoke israel and have cameras ready to capture it … and the oirish always lap it up.
@Nathan Mawhinney: Little country lol. Israel is America.
Essentially they do the killing and arms sales for the yanks so the yanks don’t have to take the blame, simple as that. They’re all yanks.
Hahahaha, stay classy boys. Long live Israel, the champions of human rights in the Middle East!
@Nathan Mawhinney: Not that small anymore, a 50 year policy of robbing land has helped increase it’s size and and population.
@Denis McClean: ‘A blot of civilisation’… The Israeli State has achieved more technological advancement in 75 years than some countries in 300. Israeli receives 3.2 billion from the United States each year. The US gives more to Iraq. It gives 1.1 billion to Egypt and 1.5 to Jordan.
@Keith Fay: go away with your patrionising “oirish”
I’d say you would have made a great “G Man” in Dublin back in the day
@Keith Fay: how was Hamas created and after what incident? Go educate yourself and come back to me.
@Dermot Foley: I see captain boycott got BDS’d. The schadenfreude was off the chart. I laughed and laughed! Reap what you sow = roflcopter.
@Brian Casey: Israel is the same size as Leinster. It’s small Brian.
@Clifford Brennan: what? Whataboutery? Good man. What age are you? Rofl-what? Jesus.
@Dermot Foley: Bwahahaha. I couldn’t let the great news pass us by here. Hope Omar appreciates the delicious irony of it all. :)
Best news I heard today.
Where now in the Old Testament Bible did Moses promise the Israelites the Sun Moon & Stars !
@Eire: In the soon to be discovered lost scrolls of the sea of tranquility
Apparently Israelis are now claiming that the moon is ‘anti semitic’.
It crashed on the moon therefore it made it to the moon. Does a Baresheet on the moon.
Great achievement on such a small budget…
Benjamin Betanyahu? Seriously?
@John Strahan: Your right, should be called mass murderer. More apt.
@Cal Mooney: never bet on a yahoo to do anything productive
Great country?? You must be living on the moon to have that opinion.
Anyone who has seen Iron Sky knows it was the nazis on the dark side of the moon probably shot it down
I already see that some Irish people are getting offended for Palestinian more so than actual Palestinians .
@Jason Byrne:
I presume English isn’t your first language?
@james boylan: bwahahaha
The artificial apartheid theocracy that will do what it takes to bring Armageddon to ‘lesser’ civilizations should have its wings seriously clipped.
@Denis McClean: Israel is the only democracy in the region and is surrounded by dictatorships and theocracies who have no respect for human rights and who have all attacked Israel at one time or another. Many openly admit to wanting to see Israel destroyed utterly. How do you interact with someone who officially wants you dead?
Israel’s heavy handed response to perceived threats is one thing but the lies some people peddle about that country come with a very familiar smell.
Also, the rise in anti-semitism in the West just highlights the need for a Jewish homeland.
@Will: Er-a goo away with your “only democracy in the region and is surrounded by dictatorships and theocracies” bullish*t! Israel is a murdering criminal colonial project….everyone knows this, sure its just re-elected a war criminal and shoots children dead on a daily basis, that propaganda train your pushing has long gone, people stopped believing that years ago yeah deluded nutter!
Israel recieves more money than any other country from the US. Israel has free college, free healthcare, and now a space program…all paid for by a country that has none of that and argues against giving those things to it’s own citizens.
@Wade Wilson: Not true actually, both Iraq and Afghanistan recieve more aid from America then Israel. Israel is contractually obliged to use much of the money to buy American armaments as is the case with many countries who recieve American ‘aid’.
America also benefits by acquiring Israeli technology.
A very credible attempt, anyway. Congratulations to them.
Imagine a country that has advanced rocket development carrying out ethnic cleansing and mass murder at the same time. Mmmm where’s my history book, I must check sonething
Fair play to the Israelis for trying.
@J. Reid: why would you even bother typing out that
@J. Reid: Show of force as well if you think about it, if they have the tech to send a rocket 300k sending one a few hundred kilometres into the centre of Tehran isn’t going to be much of an issue.
Is this the promised land,????
@Des Doran: if only!
@journal.ie ***Fact check***
(verbatim from Wikipedia)
“…On 14 November 2008, the Moon Impact Probe separated from the Chandrayaan orbiter at 14:36 UTC and struck the south pole in a controlled manner, making India the fourth country to place its flag on the Moon.[10] The probe hit near the crater Shackleton at 15:01 UTC, ejecting sub-surface soil that could be analysed for the presence of lunar water ice.[11][12] The location of impact was named as Jawahar Point.[13]…,’
Not a great day for the other Israel as well.
Netanyahu: “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again”.
Just shows how he gets everything wrong. The correct phrase is:
“If at first you don’t succeed, try doing it the way you were told the first time”.
so, NASA shoots this down so the Israelis would not get the proof that America did not land on the moon and that the earth is actually flat.
@Terry Tibbs: The fact it was unsuccessful and that no one has “been” to the Moon since 1972 would call into question whether the US ever made it there. Kubrick played a blinder.
i bet they will claim that the aliens on the moon shot it down and nuke the place !
That Israeli sad
They should have landed the ‘Beresheet in the woods’
Put two palestinians up there and Israel will be there in minutes building a wall..
Why did it take so long to get there? Genuine question. It launched on 22 Feb.
@Mel Finn: Took a tour of the settlement bloc first
@Clifford Brennan: thanks for that. Makes sense now
@Mel Finn: No problem. Space flight has inherent risks but it was a superb first effort! I can’t wait to see the footage of the lunar surface when they land it next time.
Delighted for them
384,000km and $100million only to crash within sight of the landing zone. Ouch!
Still, at least they weren’t attempting to build a childrens hospital. That could get really embarrassing!
@Will: FAS had a space program in the late noughties, nobody went to space but it cost a lot more than this.
Its real name is the Mere Sh*t
“Fair Jews to them for having a go!”
The should have landed the ‘Beresheet in the woods’
have your say