This guy was touting around clubs with potential that he reckoned he could sell to consortiums through a football investment company, he was explaining about how they could get around the rules about having an interest in more than one club by using shell companies and having people fronting as owners. Bryan Robson is in this guy's (Joe Sim's) pocket and in it up to his neck. Robson promised to use his contacts to arrange loan deals for any club the consortium's bought into. The guy boasted he was big buddies with Sir Alex Ferguson and some of the top agents, and what's more had films and evidence to prove it..........SAF didn't come out of it too well, and the finger was pointed at him as arranging to loan Man Utd players to clubs that these consortiums bought into. The plan on the table was that they bought into Sheff Wed, in this case Joe Sim took 20% of the clubs shares for arranging the deal, the members of the consortium picked up the club for peanuts (£10 -£15 million was the fgure being bandied about) and with "preferential" loan deals and transfers arranged by Robson, SAF and their contacts they got into the premiership, on the cheap. Joe Sim would then arrange the sale of the club to wealthy Asian businessmen at a discount...........pick up Sheff Wed, a club with a big fan base and get them into the premiership for around £50 million (help with financing the deal i.e. interest free loans being available through the wealthy Asian businessmen if needed) So you pick up Sheff Wed and get them promoted it costs you £50m and maybe an interest free loan of £20m secured on a future sale. So you end up with a premiership club worth around £300 million, the consortium then sell the club to the wealthy Asian businessman for a knockdown price of £150 million and they forgo the loan repayment, the consortium walk away with a cool £100 million profit (20% of which goes to Joe Sim, who pays off Robson and others out of his cut). As broker of the deal Joe Sim takes a 5% share from the new owners. When asked how he could guarantee the sale, Joe Sim claimed to have contacts with wealthy Asian businessmen who wanted to buy into Premiership football, he claimed to be well in with Paul Lim (the billionaire who wanted to buy Liverpool) our very own VT, Thaskin Chanawara (the ex Man City owner) and a few others including the guy at Birmingham.......he also claimed to be building contacts in other parts of the world.
A bit of a scare from our point of view..........when asked what time he would be getting to the meeting, he said he was running late because he was having lunch with HAMMAN Not Sam Thank God, but the guy who was bombed out by FIFA in the bribery scandal. At the end of the programme Joe Sim let it slip that he was talking to the Sheff Utd owners, and thinking of doing a deal in his own right, which would be the first time he would be using his own money. Sensational journalism for the sake of it? Maybe, but an interesting watch, and unfortunately it had the ring of truth. Rich Asian businessmen, get into a premiership club cheaply for risking no more than an interest free loan, the consortiums, who take a medium sized risk for an almost guaranteed profit. Sounds like no one loses, but this guy gets to control which players go to which club to a certain extent.......and they will go to the ones which make him the most profit, it's one step up from match fixing..........this guy also is a big gambler on match results as well.......he also own's the Man Utd themed bar and restaurant franchise in Thailand and Korea........licensed by the club.......it stinks, and it's the poor old fan that gets screwed again.