Reading takeover doubts

A story in the latest edition of Private Eye raises a series of questions about the takeover of the club.   Anton Zingarevich is to acquire control for £25m by a Gibraltar company, Thames Sports Investment. This is represented by offshore company manager Christopher Samuelson, who with Zingarevich failed in a 2004 bid to take over Everton.

A story in the latest edition of Private Eye raises a series of questions about the takeover of the club.   Anton Zingarevich is to acquire control for £25m by a Gibraltar company, Thames Sports Investment. This is represented by offshore company manager Christopher Samuelson, who with Zingarevich failed in a 2004 bid to take over Everton.

The deal was supposed to have been completed by March, but neither Zingarevich nor Samuelson has yet become a director, suggesting that the deal is incomplete.  The official explanation is that it still awaits Football League approval.

The Eye suggests that the League may be worried about a repeat of the Portsmouth situation where the son of another rich Russian, Sacha Gaydamak, acquired the club while maintaining that the deal had nothing to do with his much richer father.   Anton Zingarevich’s father Boris made his money in the paper business of Ilim Pulp and was certainly the molney behind the Everton bid.   When he decided that he did not like the bid, it died.

The Eye tries to make out that Samuelson is a rather unsavoury character but a lot of this seems to be guilt by association.  His Valmet company management group was closely involved with the Yukos empire of jailed oligarch Mikhail Khordokovsky.  But then one can end up in prison in Russia because one has fallen out with the regime.

Russian business practices may not always meet the standards expected in the west, but the money is certainly there and it hasn’t done Chelsea any harm.   Reading fans can probably continue to enjoy their promotion party without too many qualms.