Your Email:

Your Name:

To:

Subject:

Message:
By Sumayyah Meehan January 11, 2010 News broke last week that a rich Emirati Sheikh was set to purchase the Spanish football (or soccer if you count in US dollars) team, Real Madrid, for a whopping $1 Billion. The story, originally published in a Spanish magazine, revealed a supposedly secret plan by UAE Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan to buy up the team to add to his expanding list of sports acquisitions. The Sheikh already owns the minor league Manchester City football club in Britain, and is the President of the Abu Dhabi Al Jazira Sports Club. According to Al-Arabiya though, representatives for Sheikh Mansour vehemently denied the reports and insisted that he has no interest in purchasing Real Madrid. In a statement released to the media, a spokesman for the Sheikh maintained his loyalty to the team he already owns and alluded to his plans to revamp the football club, taking it into the Premiere League. Posted on the team’s official website is this statement, “Real Madrid wishes to inform that Real Madrid president Mr. Florentino Perez has had a great friendship for many years with His Highness, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. And that the so-called interest and the existence of any offer to acquire Real Madrid are false. His Highness has always shown tremendous respect for the club and understands that Real Madrid belongs to its members.” Now the good ol’ Sheikh may not have tried to buy Real Madrid, however, he has been pumping gargantuan sums of cold hard cash into the struggling Manchester City club ever since he took the helm. Reports reveal that the wealthy Sheikh has already padded the club with more than $600 million in the first season alone. Who knows, he might invest a couple of billion before the club can rise to the standards of Real Madrid. While the Sheikh may have shot the story down, the mere suggestion of a UAE royal splurging on a high-ticket item, especially when the country is suffering from an economic meltdown, has many critics of the lavish Gulf region raising eyebrows. This news comes on the heels of recent news that Abu Dhabi loaned Dubai $10 billion to help fight its own economic woes. Maybe that’s why the spokesman for Real Madrid came out later in the week with a statement to back up Sheikh Mansour’s denial. Source: Al Arabiya Image: Real Madrid team poses for a friendly match/ Getty Images http://www.elanthemag.com/index.php/site/blog_detail/uae_saves_dubai_now_football-nid285749386/