Dr SAF reaffirms commitment & denies rumours

Dr SAF, who of course visited Fratton on Friday, has once again moved to reaffirm his commitment to Pompey - in The Sunday Mirror - but has admitted that he was 'contacted by groups claiming to represent two major clubs, but I had no interest in walking away from Portsmouth.'

He said that he 'went to meticulous lengths to find a club that suited my future needs and I've a moral obligation to see the deal through.' Clearly the man is a man of honour, I hope - although it seems that way, but also we must have had advantages that these others did not, most notably our 'cheaper price' I would suspect.

Of course these other clubs, said to be Newcastle and West Ham, might have facilities in place that we do not but even sorting all these areas out for us and clearing minimal debts made us a cheaper option than both of these as they are both 'said' to be much more in debt than we are, both apparently some £200m or more!

So, when you factor in clearing our debts, buying the club, stabilising the squad, building this training ground and redeveloping Fratton - which will of course come from our friends with the slogan 'every little helps' it would appear - we still work out much cheaper! Even 'if' we do eventually get this new stadium his own people would deal with this you would expect/if England win the world cup bid a new stadium should be build in conjunction with the FA anyway?

He is happy with his will be investment and had no interest in the clubs trying to 'hijack' his move for us, which were just two in 'numerous opportunities to invest in English clubs' that he is said to have had in the past year.

I liked the way he ended by saying: 'everything felt right about the investment in Portsmouth.'

There was also a brief snippet from Peter Storrie shooting down claims of 'third party involvement' in this dealing: 'we are puzzled by inaccurate claims of third party involvement.

'There are no Middle East or Asian consortiums involved. It is being solely financed by Dr Al Fahim.'

Whereas in The Sunday Mail a spokesman, Ivo Ilic Gabara, for Dr SAF has denied 'reports' that Thaksin Shinawatra, of course the former owner of Citeh, is linked with any consortium buying into us.

Ivo Ilic Gabara said: 'any rumour that there is any participation by the former Thai Prime Minister is completely unfounded.'

I should hope not as if he was then the deal would be dead in the water as he is hardly 'fit and proper' is he, so would clearly fail this mandate - he was afterall convicted for corruption in Thailand last year, not fit and proper is it!

It appears that the papers are desperate to find something that can hold up, or even eliminate any chance of this deal going through - the sooner this deal goes through the better, then we can start waiving two fingers, what the hell maybe even one finger to most, if not all of them...

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