Oy Vey Pompey

Portsmouth's new regime features an Israeli director of football, an Israeli super-agent trying to bring in new players, a vice-chairman who lives in Israel and an owner who was in the Israeli army. And don't even mention the owner's father. What's going on?

Jamie Jackson
Sunday August 13, 2006
The Observer

On the forty-third floor of the Aviv Tower, a futuristic skyscraper in Ramat Gan, an important financial district close to the national football stadium in Tel Aviv, are the offices of one of the five richest men in Israel. He is a former Moscow State Circus worker who went on to become a gardener, bricklayer and arms dealer. He is now a billionaire philanthropist, at least in his own view. He holds five passports, employs a bodyguard, has a room named after him in the Louvre, and harbours a desire to solve the Middle East crisis. He was given a 13-month suspended sentence and fined $35,000 for tax evasion by the French authorities in 1999 and is the subject of an international arrest warrant issued five years ago in France for his involvement in arms dealing, tax evasion, money laundering and corruption. Russian intelligence have him under suspicion of drug trafficking in 1995 and of being a key player in global organised crime in 1996.

Arkady Gaydamak, the 54-year-old owner of Beitar Jerusalem FC, is one of many Jewish businessmen from the former Soviet Union to have invested heavily in football. Apart from all the above, he might just be the man who can harness the dreams of thousands of Pompey mushes down on the South Coast of England, who are desperate for a return to the days of 60 years ago when Portsmouth, who begin their Premiership campaign on Saturday at home to Blackburn, won successive league titles. Since Gaydamak's son, Alexandre or 'Sacha', bought a 50 per cent stake in the club last January, rumours have persisted regarding his father's influence, despite constant denials from Fratton Park and Israel.

Gaydamak senior, a man with angular features who jokingly says 'I am an extra terrestrial', welcomed Observer Sport to his Aviv Tower offices recently, where he was happy to sit at his large conference table and talk. He began by denying any involvement with Portsmouth. 'For that you must ask my son. Yes I can tell you about the football, he is going to build a new stadium, he's working on that. But I cannot tell you anything more.'

Surely, though, there is more to tell?

First there is the confusion over the extent of his son's wealth and business acumen. Gaydamak junior, who served in the Israeli army for three months as a sniper, apparently derives his income from property investments and a financial agency business, the Moscow-based Antanta-Capital Group. In 2004 it made a profit of $647,000 (£366,000). This does not seem to suggest enough financial clout to allow Gaydamak's eventual £30m buy-out of Portsmouth - the first half was paid last winter and the deal was completed last month - and the considerable transfer budget made available to manager Harry Redknapp this summer. Especially when Gaydamak's known business career is taken into account.

Between February 1995 and May 2003, he was a director of seven companies, none of which appears now to be trading. He was the sole director of one, Monarch Fiduciary Limited, which went bust in June 2000, owing over £700,000, including £260,000 in unpaid VAT, and £464,240 to a charity. His response in January to queries regarding his failed ventures was: 'I don't owe anyone any money that I know of.'

He is close to his father - 'Very proud of him' according to a friend - and has been in business with Gaydamak senior as a fellow director of Pivoine, a holding company in Luxembourg. And in March he attempted to unfreeze £5m from a joint bank account held with his father at UBS Bahamas. Perhaps reflecting this chequered financial career and the inevitable comparisons between his father and the riches of Chelsea owner and fellow Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, Gaydamak junior also stated then that he was 'no Abramovich... and Portsmouth Football Club is my investment. There is no relationship whatsoever between my father and this club.'

Portsmouth say the same now, but the whispers will not go away. Two months ago, a party from Portsmouth met in Israel to discuss the transfer budget and strategy or the upcoming Premiership season. Present were Gaydamak junior, his adviser and vice-chairman, David Chissick, Redknapp, who had travelled with the club's chief executive, Peter Storrie, and newly installed director of football Abraham Grant, a former head coach of the Israel national team, Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv, who is a friend of Abramovich. Redknapp, now in his second spell at the club, may have felt that discussions had gone well when he returned to England a few days later with the promise of £30m to buy players, a fortune by the club's standards, and a far greater amount than that available to Arsene Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez, the respective managers of Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool.

The profile of those present when Portsmouth's executive convened two months ago - only Redknapp and Storrie do not have Israeli passports - and the location of the meeting, underlines the changing identity of the club's power-brokers. Chissick, a 46-year-old media executive who is chairman of Cmate, a computer gaming company with offices in Israel, where he has a home, is particularly powerful, doing much of the fixing for Gaydamak junior. It all points to problems ahead for Redknapp. The transformation in the eight months since Gaydamak arrived has, according to club insiders, left the manager isolated. A surprising position, if it is true, for a man who ensured the club's Premiership status, against all the odds, in the final week of last season.

The apparent dilution of his power may in turn explain why Redknapp has found it difficult to sign players, despite his being able to offer wages of up to £60,000 a week. The potential transfers mentioned this summer are too many to list but they include England front man Jermain Defoe, former Real Madrid striker Nicolas Anelka, and the Argentina captain, Juan Pablo Sorin. Instead, Redknapp has failed to spend more than a tiny fraction of the £30m on buying players. Only loan signing Glen Johnson and free agent David Thompson had arrived before Sol Campbell, another free agent, and goalkeeper David James (£1.2m) joined last week.

'It's difficult,' is Redknapp's explanation, 'because clubs don't want to let players go.' Yet he had hinted at frustrations within his own club at the end of last month. 'Everybody talks to agents. I'm not going to sign anybody on anyone else's opinion. Anybody. If someone comes to me with a player and I'm not sure, I will not sign him. I don't care who suggests this player or that player. The only person whose head is on the chopping block is mine, so it's my decision. I will always do things my way, otherwise it's not worth doing the job.'

Super agent Pini Zahavi, another Israeli, brokered the Abramovich purchase of Chelsea, and introduced Gaydamak to Portsmouth. His connections stretch around the world, and he is very influential in South America and Russia. He is the man behind many of the biggest deals within the English game. Zahavi took Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United, manoeuvred former Old Trafford chief executive Peter Kenyon into the same role at Chelsea, and was involved in the meeting between Ashley Cole and the Stamford Bridge hierarchy in January 2005 which resulted in all concerned being fined.

According to insiders, Zahavi's influence at Fratton Park extends beyond the flux of playing personnel. He was involved in talks with directors during their visit to Israel and one highly placed source at Fratton Park said: 'He may as well be on the board.' Redknapp, meanwhile, works mainly with Willie McKay, another top agent who negotiated the deal that took record signing Benjamin Mwaruwari from Auxerre to Portsmouth for £4.1m last season.

Redknapp had a fractious relationship with former owner Milan Mandaric. Redknapp left Portsmouth, later to return, for Southampton in November 2004 largely because of the presence of the club's director of football, Velimir Zajec. How is his relationship with Gaydamak? 'OK. He's not an interfering chairman. He's a young guy who has employed me to do the job.' But is the presence of a new director of football, Grant, not reminiscent of the Zajec situation? 'Not at all. This man's an absolute gentleman.'

Was he your own appointment? 'No, I'd be a liar if I stood here and said I wanted to bring Avram Grant in. The owner said, "If you don't want him, I understand, it's your decision,"' Others at the club say an uneasy Redknapp 'blew hot and cold about the appointment' and there is a suspicion that Grant is waiting to take over if early-season results do not go Redknapp's way. 'Avram Grant is not the kind of person to sit back and earn the money,' says one Israeli football journalist.

What of Redknapp's stated frustrations? 'I was talking about other people here. Agents keep ringing up people.' And the Israeli connection, with figures including Zahavi, involved? 'Well Pini's not involved with this club.' Yet some at Fratton say...? 'No, no. Pini's nothing to do with it.' And the school of thought that has Gaydamak's father connected with Portsmouth? 'I don't know. I wouldn't know the background.'

Redknapp has enjoyed a highly successful 40-year playing and managing career. During that time, had he ever worked under anyone like this? A man whose father holds passports for Israel, Russia, Angola, Canada and France, contributes to a variety of charitable organisations in Israel, including those linked to the Arab community, runs a right-wing political party, funds a refugee camp, orchestrated a deal that allowed Angola's debt to Russia be slashed from $5.5 billion to $1.5bn, is a former chairman of Russian Credit Bank, and the subject of an arrest warrant for alleged arms trading? 'No, I don't know anything about that. I only know Sacha. It's the first time I've heard it. If it's true then it's interesting, but I don't know anything about the man's background.'

Arkady Gaydamak was born in Berdichev in Ukraine, in 1952. At 19 he moved to Israel. 'I had $3 in my pocket,' he says. I slept on the beach. When you see only sky, you have no limit.' Six months later he moved to France and in 1972 he started a small translation company. Through this he established connections with the French political and financial elite.

As the Eastern Bloc crumbled in 1989, Gaydamak moved into more lucrative trades with the former Soviet Republics in coal, meat, wheat and, finally, weapons. He had companies in England, France, Jersey, Luxembourg, Holland and the Isle of Man.

Since 2001, Gaydamak senior, who legally changed his Israeli name to Arye Barlev, has refused to respond to the international arrest warrant. He is wanted for questioning by the French authorities for his alleged part in a $633m arms sale to Angola in 1994, against United Nations sanctions, which was brokered by his associate, the Franco-Algerian businessman Pierre Falcone. Gaydamak denies any wrongdoing in 'Angolagate'. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of the former president of France, Francois Mitterrand, was recently given a suspended prison sentence for his involvement in the scandal. Gaydamak also denies the allegations, based on memos by French security services sent to an investigating judge, that he had connections with the Russian mafia.

Since 'Angolagate', Gaydamak divides his time between Tel Aviv and Moscow, where he owns a lavish apartment filled with nineteenth-century furniture. Last year he bought one of the country's most famous newspapers, Moskovskie Novosti. He caused controversy by announcing plans to turn the weekly into a pro-government publication. 'Newspapers responsible for public opinion should not direct the public against the powers that be,' he said. And before Christmas, he was questioned for 10 hours by Israeli police as part of the investigation into alleged money-laundering at a Tel Aviv branch of Bank Hapoalim. Again he denied wrongdoing. In March Jerusalem police recommended he be charged with laundering $50m (£28.8m).

'They [normal people] need Gaydamak,' he says now. 'He is a Jew, rich, in trouble with the police. He is in conflict with everybody so he is a bad man. But what wrong I did? All my money I made on the Russian stock exchange. In November the shares of Gastro, the biggest Russian gas company was $51, today it's $92. That's it.'

He says he knows Abramovich and other prominent businessmen from the former Soviet Union but rejects comparisons. Is he familiar with Lithuanian Vladimir Romanov, the owner of Hearts, or Badri Patarkatsishvili, owner of Dinamo Tbilisi, the wealthiest man in Georgia? 'I am very far from them. Mr Abramovich is a powerful and positive man, but I would never claim I know him very well. By our economical activity we've had some connections, he visited my house here some time ago but we don't have a particular relationship. 'But football is no way to make money,' he finishes with a smile.

'When you want to take care of the team and respect the supporters you will never make money. Different kinds of people are just saying that it [club ownership] is to take the club and make real estate. Russians take care of the sports activity, they are here for fun and social status and also they bring their capacity, integrity and honesty to be a real sport manager for the good of the team and their supporters.'

The Premier League confirmed last week that Alexandre Gaydamak had passed the 'fit and proper person' test that all directors have to take to 'ensure they have not been involved in any illegal act.'

Why did the Israelis end up at Fratton Park, and why did Gaydamak target Portsmouth when he could have invested elsewhere, maybe at a higher-profile club such as Aston Villa or Wolves? Neither Gaydamak nor Chissick has any background in football and neither courts publicity.

According to one insider, Portsmouth was seen as an ideal purchase. Gaydamak and his colleagues see Pompey as a club with great potential, with a large and passionate fan base, and say they have the funds and the commitment to turn the club into something bigger. They relish a challenge and believe they can change the image of Portsmouth FC.

What do the fans make of this Jewish takeover? Portsmouth features prominently in the history of Jews in Britain - it was one of the most important cities for the Jewish community in the nineteenth century - but this takeover has come out of the blue.

Portsmouth's most famous fan, John PFC Westwood, is ecstatic. 'It's fantastic. We've bought a new training ground, he [Gaydamak] is going to start an academy, and Sol Campbell will act as magnet for other top players. The dream has become a reality.'

Portsmouth recently bought a 47-acre site at Titchfield to replace their basic training facilities near Southampton airport. Mandaric's plans to redevelop Fratton Park have been ditched by Gaydamak, and a move to a new stadium in Farlington, which failed five years ago, is again being considered. The club's star striker, Lomana LuaLua, having finally been convinced by the persuasive Chissick, has signed a new long-term contract. So have Gary O'Neil, Pedro Mendes and Richard Hughes. It seems Gaydamak and his Israeli team will be around for a good while yet.

The key players

Arkady Gaydamak

The father of the Portsmouth FC owner, he denies any involvement in the running of the club. A 54-year-old billionaire who holds Russian, Israeli, Angolan, French and Canadian passports. Gaydamak cannot, officially, leave Israel because of an arrest warrant hanging over him, yet he visits Russia and Angola. The French authorities want to talk to him about arms trading and he was recently questioned in Israel about suspected money laundering. He owns Beitar Jerusalem.

Alexandre 'Sacha' Gaydamak

One of three children, the 30-year-old son of Arkady recently bought full control of Portsmouth from chairman Milan Mandaric, having acquired 50 per cent last winter. He has been involved with several companies in the UK, one of which went bankrupt. He was formerly in business with his father and had a bank account with Arkady in Bermuda closed by the French authorities. His wife is German, he lives in Mayfair and holds French and Israeli passports.

David Chissick

New vice-chairman who is main adviser to Gaydamak junior. Described by Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie as working 'actively for the future of Portsmouth Football Club' and, according to insiders, is highly influential. Was among those who attended talks in Israel. After Chissick had recently persuaded Lomana LuaLua to finally sign a new, long-term contract, the club's star striker said: 'I wasn't happy but Mr Gaydamak sent David Chissick to tell me he wanted me here and that's all I wanted.'

Avram Grant

Formerly the Israel national coach, Maccabi Haifa and Tel Aviv Haifa, Grant was chosen by Gaydamak junior as technical director of the club. A factor in Redknapp's departure from Portsmouth during his first period in charge was the presence of Velimer Zajic, the former technical director brought in by chairman Milan Mandaric. He is close to Roman Abramovich.

Pini Zahavi

Super agent who brought Gaydamak junior and Portsmouth together, and also brokered the deal for Roman Abramovich's purchase of Chelsea and took Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United. Probably the world's best-known agent, and an influential source of players including Manuel Fernandes who recently failed a medical but is still at club hoping to pass a second check. Zahavi was popular in Israel until his involvement in the TV deal which took World Cup matches to a pay-per-view station.

Super-rich ex-Soviets who put their money in football

Super-rich businessmen from the former Soviet Union are involved with football clubs throughout the world. Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is joined by Vladimir Romanov, the Lithuanian owner of Hearts, where he has installed son Roman as chairman. Badri Patarkatsishvili, owner of Dinamo Tbilisi, revealed to Observer Sport his link to Corinthians, the Brazilian club whose holding company Media Sports Investment, also showed an interest in West Ham. 'We have invested with Boris Berezovsky,' he said. Berezovsky, an exiled Russian tycoon, Badri and Abramovich, have all been linked with the £18m takeover in 2004 by Britain-based MSI. Berezovsky was granted political shelter by the Government in September 2004. Badri is wanted in Moscow for fraud and embezzlement and rarely leaves Tbilisi. Uefa and Betfair, the betting exchange, detected irregular betting on a 2004-05 Uefa Cup match involving Dinamo and Panionios. Losing 2-0 at half time, Panionios won 5-2. 'For illegal gamblers and money launderers, it [club ownership] is a good way to make money clean,' Uefa's Lars-Christer Olsson said. The head of Brazil's organised crime investigation unit, Jose Carneiro, also said: 'There are indications of laundering [at Corinthians].' Badri insists: 'I have never been involved in money laundering anywhere. I have nothing to hide.'

Additional reporting by Anna Kessel