Israel Football Association questions finances of UAE royal over Beitar Jerusalem deal
The Israel Football Association has hired a due diligence and financial investigations firm to examine the wealth of Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, after the UAE businessman and royal had recently bought a 50 percent share of the notoriously racist Beitar Jerusalem Football Club.
The deal was sealed for a 300m shekel (almost $92m) investment over a 10-year period between Moshe Hogeg, Beitar Jerusalem’s CEO, and Nahyan in early December.
But the Committee of Rights Transfer, a body within Israel’s Football Association responsible for approving the deal, has raised questions over “significant gaps” in Nahyan's financial situation in a meeting on Sunday.
According to daily business newspaper The Marker, the football association said that Nahyan’s stated wealth was $1.6bn, but that around $1.5bn was in non-tradeable bonds linked to the Venezuelan government, a South American country under US sanctions with a collapsing economy.
Nahyan’s non-tradeable bonds are deemed useless, according to Megiddo, a financial intelligence company hired by the Israel Football Association.
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The Marker also reported that Nahyan’s assets, some in Lebanon, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, had less value in reality than declared in the books.
Hogeg has criticised the football association, accusing it of “sabotaging” the deal with Nahyan and harming the club by “recruiting an investigative company and leaking biased and misleading information on its behalf”.
Anwar Hussein, CEO of the department of projects in the Hamad Bin Khalifa Group (HBK), the company which bought stakes in Beitar Jerusalem, was expected to respond in writing to the questions raised by the Israel Football Association on Sunday, which will decide whether to approve the deal or not.
Beitar Jerusalem fans are known for racist chants against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.
It is the only club in the Israeli Premier League never to have had any players from the Palestinian community in Israel, which comprises 20 percent of the country's population.
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