Ex-Sheffield United boss subject of TV sting

Leeds United, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday were among clubs offered as potential takeover targets during last night’s Channel 4 programme Dispatches, which featured an investment group offering to help businessmen break Football Association rules preventing them from owning more than one club.

Former Manchester United and England midfielder Bryan Robson – a former Blades manager – is an adviser for the London Nominees Football Fund, a group “investing in football clubs, players, franchises, merchandising and sponsorship in this outstanding growth industry”.

He and other members of the fund discussed ways that foreign owners, with the help of offshore bank accounts and front groups, could circumvent rules preventing multiple ownership of English clubs.

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Claiming they were working on behalf of an Indian businessman who makes his money in “India’s illegal gambling market”, the undercover reporters met London Nominees chief executive Andrew Leppard and Robson, then manager of Thailand, in Bangkok’s officially franchised Manchester United Bar.

They were then introduced to Joe Sim, a Far Eastern businessman and adviser to the Thai FA, who talked repeatedly of his close personal friendship with Sir Alex Ferguson.

Sim and Robson both claimed they would get players on loan from United once they had bought one or two of the many Championship and Football League clubs they claimed are open to a takeover.

Other Premier League managers, including Kenny Dalglish, Harry Redknapp and Steve Bruce, would – they indicated – help them out with loan signings to increase the chances of success because of Sim’s and Robson’s personal connections. These claims were denied by lawyers acting on behalf of Ferguson and the other managers mentioned at the end of the programme.

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Central to the London Nominees’ business plan, according to Leppard, is taking over a big club outside of the top flight, getting them promoted within a timeframe of three or four years and selling at a huge profit.

Other ideas mentioned included the selling of training grounds in prime locations to supermarket chains and the use of PR firms to get supporters to “accept the new owners” by announcing they intend to “put a substantial amount of money into the club”.

London Nominees denied that they, or anyone associated with them, would breach or offer to breach FA or Football League regulations.

Sim denied saying that Ferguson would “call in favours from other managers” but that as a friend “Mr Sim was confident that Sir Alex would help if he could”.