Liverpool’s red-blooded Sheikh

philip jacobson recalls meeting Liverpool’s Dubai billionaire suitor

It says everything about the driving ambition and steely character of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who has opened negotiations on a mega-million-pound takeover of Liverpool Football Club, that he is the third son of the patriarch of Dubai's royal dynasty.

The normal pecking order of the Gulf Arab aristocracy would have relegated him to a supporting role under the elder brothers, but there was never any chance that he would settle for that. Like his redoubtable father, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, he had a grand vision for the tiny city state on the Persian Gulf: first as Crown Prince and, since January, as supreme ruler, he has presided