Portsmouth sold to Saudi tycoon Ali Al-Faraj

The notion that Premier League football clubs have become the latest must-have trinket for questionable Middle Eastern moguls gained currency yesterday, when troubled Portsmouth changed hands for the second time in six weeks in a deal that is so lacking in transparency that Pompey fans and players will be well-advised not to breath easily yet.

The south coasters, who remain bottom of the league with just three points from eight games despite their first win of the season away to Wolves on Saturday, saw ownership pass yesterday from Dubai businessman Sulaiman Al-Fahim (above, with club chief executive Peter Storrie), who bought the club on August 26 promising a new era at Fratton Park, to the oil and property-rich Ali Al-Faraj.

Not much is known about Al-Faraj, who has taken over 90 per cent of the club, leaving Al-Fahim as a minority shareholder and non-executive chairman (for the next two years) with the remaining 10 per cent of shares. Indeed the outgoing owner even admitted to the Guardian that he had not met Al-Faraj, nor knew who the other members of the new consortium that had taken over Pompey were: "I only know one of them [Mr Faraj]. I haven't met him yet - that's what I know in the papers."

Al-Fahim insisted that he would remain part of the club, saying "I love English football. It's the biggest entertainment in the world, the Premier League. And I will attend the Tottenham game" on October 17. He even claimed that he would still make available to the club the emergency funding of £50m that was needed to make such day-to-day basic transactions as paying the players possible. [The club promised that players would receive their still outstanding wages for September today, though who the money has come from remains unknown.]

Portsmouth's new owner Al-Faraj, 50, had tried to buy the club from its previous owner, the Russian businessman Sacha Gaydamak, back in August, but had lost out to Fahim. Faraj now joins the board along with his associate Mark Jacob - who said yesterday that the "respected Saudi property investor" was a "huge supporter of the English Premiership and he's delighted to get involved."

The first task will be to try and save the club from a financially crippling relegation to the Championship that looks grimly inevitable even now. Renewing the glory days of just two years ago, when the club won the FA Cup under Harry Redknapp, must now become a longer term aim. ·