In 2009, Sulaiman Al Fahim stole five million pounds from his wife to help fund his purchase of the English soccer club, Portsmouth.
On Thursday, he received his sentence.
“The man who owned Portsmouth for six weeks during an ill-fated spell in 2009 has been sentenced to five years in a United Arab Emirates jail for stealing £5m from his wife to fund the purchase,” the BBC reported.”Sulaiman Al Fahim, who also fronted the Abu Dhabi United Group’s deal to buy Manchester City in 2008, was found guilty of forgery, using forged documents and aiding and abetting.”
The prosecution claimed that Al Fahim’s wife had opened a high interest rate account in 2009. When the returns that she was expecting did not come in, the wheels were set in motion. Per the report, the manager of the bank was also convicted of “theft, forgery of official documents and use of forged official documents,” and has been sentenced to five years, himself.
Despite being in the Premier League when Al Fahim owned the team, Portsmouth was going through a rough financial period. As the BBC report noted, four years after Al Fahim bought the club, “Pompey had gone into administration twice, suffered three relegations and had seven different owners.”