Pompey set for Middle East takeover

Portsmouth look set to become the second Premier League club after Manchester City to be bought by Middle Eastern owners, after the south coast club confirmed yesterday that they had accepted a bid by Dr Sulaiman al-Fahim to buy the club, which has been on the market since January 2008. Al-Fahim is a billionaire in the property sector, and is familiar to English football fans as the man who brokered the takeover of City by the Abu Dhabi United Group last September.

The deal was sealed in Rome on Tuesday night on the eve of the Champions League final between al-Fahim and Peter Storrie, the club chairman acting on behalf of the current owner, Alexandre Gaydamak, a Russian businessman. No details have been released about the deal, but Portsmouth, the current FA Cup holders (until Saturday) are more than £30m in debt and in Fratton Park have the Premier League's least developed ground.

Portsmouth fans will rejoice at the prospect of the club becoming awash with money - in the short term it will relieve the pressure on the club to sell its prime playing assets such as Glen Johnson, Peter Crouch and Nico Kranjcar. In the long run, the possible millions from al-Fahim could finally allow the club to move to a bespoke new ground and to update their training facilities. Portsmouth narrowly escaped relegation this season from the Premier League.

Al-Fahim had been rumoured in January to be part of a consortium that had been lining up a £700m bid for Chelsea, so it's fair to assume that he has a few quid in the bank. Gaydamak, who himself had bought the club from colourful Serbian tycoon Milan Mandaric, was so desperate to offload the club he bought with his father Arcadi in 2006 that he recently offered to waive repayment on personal debts to speed up a sale, according to the Times.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
The Times: "Portsmouth's squad is threadbare, with 16 players out of contract, and although many of those were surplus to requirements, new blood is desperately required, with a replacement for Sol Campbell in defence, a creative central midfield player and a forward partner for Crouch the priorities. We may not be kept guessing about the new owner’s targets for long. Unlike Gaydamak, al-Fahim, 32, is not exactly publicity-shy, starring in an Apprentice-style TV series called Hydra Executives, in which his catchphrase is, 'Impress me'. Whether Paul Hart, the Portsmouth manager, and Brian Kidd, his assistant, will be given the chance to impress al-Fahim remains to be seen."