Osama bin Laden’s family lent £3m to Sheffield United
SHEFFIELD United Football Club received a £3million loan from the family of Osama bin Laden, the late al-qaeda leader, the High Court heard yesterday.
The South Yorkshire team, which has just won promotion to the Premier League, received the money in 2017, as it battled to balance the books.
One club official was so worried about the source of the money that he sent an email saying he feared the club could be accused of “laundering money for extremists”, if information got out.
The revelation came on the fourth day of a High Court battle between Sheffield United’s co-owners, Kevin Mccabe and the Saudi Prince Abdullah Bin Mosaad Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
The pair, who teamed up in 2012, but have since fallen out, have been locked in a struggle over the future financial structure of the club.
In 2017, the club – known as The Blades – received a £3million loan as part of an investment plan entitled Project Delta.
Earlier this week the court heard how Mr Mccabe and Prince Abdullah argued over whether the money would have to be paid back to the investor, thought to be a Saudi sports tycoon.
But yesterday, lawyers representing Prince Abdullah suggested Mr Mccabe knew that the actual source of the funds was the family of bin Laden.
Emails read out in court appeared to confirm that there was concern over how the investment would be interpreted if it were known more widely
Andreas Gledhill QC, leading Prince Abdullah’s legal team, said Mr Mccabe “knew the money had come from another source, namely a member of the bin Laden family”. An email from Jeremy Tutton, a colleague of Mr Mccabe at his property business and a member of the United board, said he was worried that if the local newspaper discovered where the money had come from it could run the headline: “Blades launder money for extremists.”
But Mr Mccabe told the court the exchange had simply been “banter”.
Bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 US terror attacks and was killed by US special forces at his hideout in Pakistan in 2011, was a member of a prominent and influential Saudi family with connections to its royal family.
It was not clear which bin Laden family member gave the loan.
Mr Mccabe, 71, who was born in Sheffield, made his fortune in property in the north of England in the Eighties.
He and his family are believed to have invested more than £100million in Sheffield United, but in 2012 he began seeking an investor to help share some of the financial burden. He approached Prince Abdullah, 54, who had a number of successful sporting investments in Saudi Arabia and acted as chairman of the Riyadh professional side Al-hilal FC from 2002 to 2004.
Earlier this week, the High Court heard how Mr Mccabe had gone to the prince because he had assumed he was “minted”, but had later discovered that he did not have any money.
Paul Downes QC, representing Mr Mccabe, told the court: “Far from being minted, Prince Abdullah couldn’t even come up with a piffling £500,000 to pay staff wages,” he said.
“There is no way they would have done this deal if they had known Prince Abdullah was a man of straw.”
In 2013, the pair came to an arrangement to split the club 50-50, but Mr Mccabe’s legal team said by 2017 the prince was failing to put in sufficient funds, leaving him to prop it up to prevent the club from going under. The two men have gone to court over the terms of a buy-out provision which was drawn up when they entered into a deal in 2012.
Despite the club’s financial woes, the team have surpassed expectations on the field, winning automatic promotion to the Premier League this season.
The trial continues.