7 Oct 2009

Portsmouth sold to Saudi Arabian billionaire

7:06 am on 7 October 2009

Saudi Arabian billionaire Ali al Faraj has completed his takeover of the English Premier League football club Portsmouth.

He's bought 90 percent of the shares from Sulaiman al Fahim who took over in August.

Portsmouth's financial problems were exposed last week when the club admitted that players and executives had not been paid in the build-up to the weekend's 1-0 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers, their first points of the season after seven straight league defeats.

Portsmouth's terrible start on the pitch, the worst by a top flight club for 79 years, wasn't helped by the sale of several high-profile players in the last two transfer windows including England trio Jermain Defoe, Glenn Johnson and Peter Crouch.