The other Qatari venture (Part 1)

Ever since Sepp Blatter broke the sealed FIFA envelope and revealed the word ‘Qatar’ back in early December, world football has talked about little else. Interest in the Emirate, as tiny as it is rich, has boomed since it was controversially awarded the 2022 World Cup. The huge amounts of money spent on the bid campaign alone, not to mention the $50bn budget set aside for infrastructure upgrades, and a further $4bn for stadium construction and renovation, has thrust the gas and oil-rich region into the spotlight.

Just as the Western world was starting to digest the East’s influence on the future of the sport, the non-profit Qatar Foundation, founded by the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, paid FC Barcelona the small matter of $170m for the privilege of becoming the club’s first ever shirt sponsor, while the family were also linked with a £1.5bn takeover of Manchester United.

Such grand gestures have highlighted the country’s extreme wealth like never before. Sure, many people knew about Qatar and their vast resources, but it was never really put into context just how much money they really had. Everybody knows Bill Gates is loaded, but it would take a ludicrous spectacle, like buying the Houses of Parliament, for us all to understand how much cash he has. Oh and by the way, Gates’ net worth in 2010 was $54bn. How much is Qatar pledging to spend on the World Cup again?

By spending so much on football’s sovereign tournament, and by splashing the Emir’s logo over modern football’s sovereign club, the mega rich reality has hit home.

But there is a more low-key Qatari venture into football taking place right now, one that has seemingly slipped under the footballing radar. Until very recently, at least.

As with the Qatar Foundation, the Al Thani ruling family are heavily involved. And like the Manchester United links, a football club has been purchased. Unlike recent insights into the upper echelons of Qatar’s way of life, however, relatively (and I stress the word relatively) little money has been thrown about.

Last June, as football’s attention focused solely on the World Cup in South Africa (and some people thought that would never work!), Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Abdullah Al Ahmed Al Thani (Sheikh Abdullah for ease) a distant relative of the Emir but part of the ruling family nevertheless, paid the paltry sum of €36m for Spanish club Malaga CF.

Home sweet home, Estado de la Rosaleda. Courtesy of Hidalgismael

It was a deal that cleared Malaga’s debts and allowed for significant investment and improvement in all aspects of the club, with an eye on setting up a separate business venture that would benefit the whole of Marbella and take advantage of tourism in the area. Nevertheless, the initial aspirations of the man himself seemed modest:

“Our goal is to help Malaga take the necessary steps to consolidate its presence in La Liga and to reinforce the excitement and hopes of the supporters.”

Not the usual all-conquering talk synonymous with new, big-money owners, then. Fortunately for those who would have been less-than-enthused with the Sheikh’s opening gambit, Abdullah Ghubn, the spokesman and CEO of the Sheikh’s company NAS, was a little more wide-eyed.

“We are aware this is the first time an investor from this region has come to Spain and he wants to set a good example. We want to consolidate the club in La Liga and afterwards to aspire to higher things,”

The first days under the reign of Sheikh Abdullah, who holds a seat on the Board of Directors of the Doha Bank, saw the removal of unpopular manager Juan Ramón López Muñiz in favour of former Porto boss Jesualdo Ferreira, fresh from his third Portuguese league title on the bounce.

Everything included, Ferreira was backed to the tune of €17m, money that was spent on the likes of Eliseu, Rondon, Sandro Silva, Malagueño, Sebastian Fernandez, Quincy Owusu-Abeyie and Galatto. Not the biggest names in the game, but some of those players are on surprisingly inflated wages. Quincy, for example, was said to be earning £80,000 per week at his previous club, Qatari outfit Al-Sadd. It is unlikely that he will have moved to Spain’s south coast for much less than that. Additionally, notorious “super-agent” Jorge Mendes, known for earning large fees from the deals he oversees, was a go-to man for the new owners in their search for new talent, while the Sheikh left his new business in the hands of Ghubn and returned to Qatar.

Los Boquerones, named after the anchovies that are caught in the local area, were involved in no less than 21 transfers that summer. Such a turnover in resources is never going to provide the ideal preparation for a new campaign, especially under a new coach who was unfamiliar with the league, but what really rocked the boat was the dismissal of the club’s new CEO on the eve of the first game against Valencia.

Yasmin Al Sahoud, lawyer and daughter of Taysir Al Sahoud, the man who introduced former Club President Fernando Sanz to the Sheikh, was told just a day before the big kick-off that she would not be welcome at La Rosaleda for the season’s curtain raiser. Playing in front of a back-drop of uncertainty, with new players and a new manager, Malaga went down 3-1 at home to Los Che.

But the real drama was to come in the following days, when Al Sahoud’s sacking sparked a series of damning claims and counter-claims between the two parties that threw the project into doubt.

Part two to follow…