Reading FC: a suitable case for financial investigation. « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Billy the Dog McGraw. Our man in the Depths of Despair
Way way back in the dim and distant past – well in 19969 to be exact – Swindon Town beat Arsenal in the league cup final on a ploughed field. The Arsenal team contained famous names like Wilson, Storey, McLintock, Radford, Graham, Gould and Armstrong.
Some years later – in this case 1990 – Swindon came fourth in the second division, and were promoted to the first division through the play offs. However they were immediately relegated for financial irregularities and their place in the top league went to Sunderland instead.
I can’t imagine many Arsenal supporters would have shed a tear.
Now we see that Reading has been promoted to the Premier League, and whoops, it looks like questions are being raised about their financial position, because three months ago Sir John Madejski, a man of impeccable credentials and loyalty to the club sold the club to Thames Sports Investment.
Problem is TSI is not a company as such. You see, you, I, or those funny little people from the AAA could set up a TSI, or an ABC or an Arbuthnot Merryweather Sporting Ventures or anything, without paying a penny, filling in a form or doing anything else. You just say, “We are Hows-Your-Father Arrangements” and you are. That’s how it goes under British law.
So, the Premier League, that well known group of turnips that cavorts with the eccentrics of the Football Association (who themselves deal with the crooks and corruptors of fifa), and who more directly deal with shadowy organisations like PGMOL, has said, for once, “what’s it all about sunshine?”
By its own rules the English Premier League (EPL) must be given the identities of all the investors involved in the purchase. Without them, no registration – and hence no Reading FC.
The man at the top of TSI is Chris Samuelson, is, we are told, a director of Mutual Trust SA, which is based in Vaud (Switzerland). Now their web site is here and today it says “Our web site is undergoing maintenance.” That’s about it.
Which is odd, because this firm runs billions of pounds of money hither and yon, and you would think they could put up a web site and keep it up. I mean, Untold Arsenal, run totally by a bunch of volunteers, can do it. So can Arsenal History Society. Mind you, PGMOL can’t either.
But perhaps their problem is what the web site used to say. Until about 2 weeks ago it said,
“Our challenge is to provide our clients with their fundamental rights to privacy of their information and to protect their assets from attack and confiscation. We will not use financial institutions to hold assets on behalf of our clients unless we are certain that the financial institution will uphold its fundamental obligations on confidentiality and its fiduciary duties.
“Equally we will not use jurisdictions that do not respect and uphold the fundamental right of clients of confidentiality. Your information is safe in our hands, for always. This statement is the cornerstone of our trust and integrity.”
All a bit mysterious, and not the sort of thing that the FA and EPL like to see (or so we are told.) Quite possibly it is the sort of place that people with dogs can open accounts in their dog’s name – should they ever wish to.
But there are suggestions (and I certainly can’t confirm these, and make no allegations whatsoever) that TSI – that non-company – is linked to Anton and Boris Zingarevich.
Sir Madejski recently said, “I hope the Zingarevich family will take Reading on to a different level and into Europe and beyond. We’ve found very pleasant people in the Zingarevichs, who will continue to do things the Reading way. It bodes well for Reading and I hope they will take the club much further.”
Problem is I can’t find out the origins of the Zingarevich wealth. Nothing wrong with that – people don’t have to explain anything to me, and 99.99999% of the human race wouldn’t tell me even if I asked – and in this case I have not. But it does seem, according to one article that Boris of that family was involved in Ilim Pulp, a timber-and-paper conglomerate, and the largest shareholder in Ener1, a New York-based power-source company. All big time stuff. So what’s the problem?
We do know that Boris and son tried a bid for Everton eight years back, but pulled out at the last second – but that was before the fit and proper person test. I can’t find out why – if anyone knows, do tell.
Anton Zingarevich has spoken about developing Reading, taking them up to the next level, developing the academy, and so on – the sort of language that is very similar to that of Venky’s who took over Blackburn. He has talked about strengthening the squad, but the current owner (or last owner, depending on the state of the deal) has said pretty much the opposite, as with, “What I don’t want is people thinking Reading are an open chequebook. We will be as careful as we have been in the past.”
There is nothing to suggest that there is anything wrong with Anton Z or his father Boris – not at all – but no matter what their wealth and no matter what other firms they run, the source of their money must be revealed these days. You can’t just go in and say, “Look, everyone can see I am wealthy.” And that’s why all that earlier stuff on the old TSI site about “we will not use jurisdictions that do not respect and uphold the fundamental right of clients of confidentiality,” suggests that there can’t be a deal.
Organisations that take down their web sites are not dodgy, per se, but one must wonder why they do it. And I guess Reading fans and Reading’s owner must be hoping that TSI does open up soon, otherwise if the FA and EPL really do obey their own rules, we will see another Everton, with the deal stopping at the last moment and Reading being left in the lurch.
There is however just one thing that might be upsetting the owners – and that is Chelsea and Man C’s current positions in the league here and PSG in France. Suddenly we find that putting in all the oil world into a club, but it doesn’t guarantee success. Bit of a bugger, that.