Shels in takeover bid!

**Anto McC** · 20/04/2006, 7:50 AM

http://www.shelbournefc.ie/news.php?id=327

**Terry** · 20/04/2006, 7:54 AM

Sweet mother of God! Is this him?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0...818840,00.html

**Poor Student** · 20/04/2006, 8:10 AM

Oh no, not that muppet. He tried to get involved with Dundee before. He's bad news. Probably a money laundering exercise. I hope Shels tell him where to go.

**lofty9** · 20/04/2006, 8:14 AM

Brilliant! Someone else to hate at shels.

**manic da hoop** · 20/04/2006, 8:31 AM

Strikes me as a little odd that Oily should announce all this on the official website, afterall it's just a preliminary enquiry. Usually news about these kind of developments usually break in the rumour mill and by the time they become official the deal has died, so I wonder what he's playing at here, regardless of the nature of the people involved.

**Poor Student** · 20/04/2006, 8:33 AM

Originally Posted by manic da hoop

Strikes me as a little odd that Oily should announce all this on the official website, afterall it's just a preliminary enquiry. Usually news about these kind of developments usually break in the rumour mill and by the time they become official the deal has died, so I wonder what he's playing at here, regardless of the nature of the people involved.

I think it's a casy of "any publicity". Di Stefano is a pretty famous and colourful figure and it could get Shels a mention in some of the foreign media.

**EnDai** · 20/04/2006, 8:42 AM

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?...&id=1129122003

**Risteard** · 20/04/2006, 10:14 AM

This is fecking hilarious.
Was gonna do a wum there saying Shels are a disgrace but it would have been just too easy.
Bring him on i say, . . . . . especially if we lose the spectacle of Ollie.

**Schumi** · 20/04/2006, 10:27 AM

You couldn't make this up.

Arkan, Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, Ollie Byrne.

**bluemovie** · 20/04/2006, 10:54 AM

Olly must have been impressed with the changes he proposed. Di Stefano bought Serbian 2nd Division side Obilic in 1996 with his buddy Arkan and took them to the Champions League.

According to "Behind the Curtain" by Jonathan Wilson:

"Referees arriving at the Obilic stadium would be greeted by heavies in fatigues, opposing players would mysteriously withdraw hours before matches, and the Tigers [Arkan's genocidal militia], many carrying guns, packed the terraces, a visible warning to any team tempted to try too hard. And then there were rumours that sedative gases were pumped into the away changing room before kick-off; implausible perhaps, but taken seriously enough that when Red Star played there, they changed in the car park. And even if there were no gas, there was always the possibility that Arkan might pay a visit to the away dressing room at half time. On one occasion, according to a common tale, he threatened to shoot an opposing centre-forward in the knee if he scored in the second half."

**dcfcsteve** · 20/04/2006, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by manic da hoop

Strikes me as a little odd that Oily should announce all this on the official website, afterall it's just a preliminary enquiry. Usually news about these kind of developments usually break in the rumour mill and by the time they become official the deal has died, so I wonder what he's playing at here, regardless of the nature of the people involved.

The first thing that came into my mind as well Manic.

Very, very strange to put an announcement on your official website that someone has approached about buying the club, before you've even met him and understood how serious he is about it all. The usual route would be for someone to meet them for initial exploratory talks to gauge how serious they were, whilst also checking them out behind the scenes to determine their financial capabilities.

Is Oily trying to suss out the likely opposition to this amongst fans and the Irish media ? If so - surely he could've just taken a guess....?

I never thought Shels could find a bigger rogue than Oily to run their affairs. Have Mastercard got a hand in this 'priceless' piece of news.....?

**MrJoeSoap** · 20/04/2006, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by bluemovie

Olly must have been impressed with the changes he proposed.

http://www.shelbournefc.ie/news.php?id=327

Olly has yet to meet him afaik, and the way that article is worded I would say he is heavily skeptical.

You can say what you like about Olly, and I'm not a big fan of his by any stretch of the imagination, but he does love his club and I don't think he would do something that he felt would harm us.

As for Di Stefano... creep!

Don't want him anywhere near the club.

**dcfcsteve** · 20/04/2006, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by MrJoeSoap

http://www.shelbournefc.ie/news.php?id=327

Olly has yet to meet him afaik, and the way that article is worded I would say he is heavily skeptical.

You can say what you like about Olly, and I'm not a big fan of his by any stretch of the imagination, but he does love his club and I don't think he would do something that he felt would harm us.

As for Di Stefano... creep!

Don't want him anywhere near the club.

But why announce it to the world ? If Oily really does have no intention of selling it to this guy, then I guess he's just looking to use the episode as free publicity fior the fact that he's looking to sell Shels.

Is all of this an admission by Oily that he has taken the club as far as he can...?

**OneRedArmy** · 20/04/2006, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Is all of this an admission by Oily that he has taken the club as far as he can...?

Exactly. Its confirmation that Shels are in the shop window and that to continue to keep such a strong (or rather more accurately) well-paid squad, a cash injection will be required.

Anybody with half an ounce of sense knew that paying the taxman 300 grand wouldn't keep the wolf away forever and that other creditors were probably grumbling. This just serves to reinforce this view.

Before any Shels fans begin to rant, my comments could be applied to any of the full-time clubs in the medium to long-term. Full-time football is a bet on either continued Setanta and/or European success and the cash that comes from it. No full-time club would appear strong enough to see through a one or two season slump without cutting back drastically.

On a more humourous note, is this confirmation that Shels are indeed the axis of evil that we all suspected?

**Schumi** · 20/04/2006, 12:08 PM

Your man is on Newstalk now, keeps referring to Ollie as "Mr Burns".

**Réiteoir** · 20/04/2006, 12:28 PM

nice to see that the club may pass from one gangster to another

Keeping it in "The Family"

**pineapple stu** · 20/04/2006, 12:30 PM

And look at Dundee now - lost at home to already relegated Brechin in front of about 1500 people in the Scottish Division One a couple of weeks ago, refusing to pay Alan Kernaghan his severance pay ('cos they can't afford it), stuck in the bottom half of the table and with something like two away wins all season! Ollie would be mad to sell to this head. Which rules nothing out, really...

**MrJoeSoap** · 20/04/2006, 12:48 PM

Promised to put Dundee in the Champions League. Failed quite miserably, with the club facing insolvency.
Gordonstoun Private School sued him for non-payment of fees.
A convicted fraudster who has consistently lied about his criminal past and his educational qualifications and is presently involved in a huge political scandal in Italy.
Lied about his past as a criminal.
He was convicted of serious fraud offences on March 18, 1986 following a 78-day trial at the Old Bailey in London. The amount of money involved in the fraud was reported at the time to have been £25m. In the same case, Di Stefano was also convicted of acquiring huge numbers of video tapes by deception.
Sentencing him to five years in prison, Judge Anthony Lewisohn concluded that Di Stefano is "one of nature’s fraudsters ... a swindler without scruple or conscience".
Di Stefano was also disqualified from being a company director and banned from "the promotion, formation or management" of a company for a period of 10 years.
Since his release from Ford Open prison in 1988, Di Stefano has hoodwinked public authorities and the media worldwide and his new associates at Dundee FC, repeatedly maintaining that he was acquitted of the charges on appeal.
Shortly after his first attempt to buy into Dundee FC four years ago, Italian police arrested Di Stefano and he was later extradited to face trial in Britain. Less than 30 months ago, the man who claims to have millions to spend on players for Dundee was in jail awaiting trial on fraud charges.
The judge at Basildon Crown Court ruled in June, 2001, that the charges, which related to alleged fraud involving a hotels company called Sandhurst Assets, had to be dropped because of the time that had elapsed since the offences were allegedly committed in the early 1990s. Fraud Squad officers were said to have been angered by the decision "on a technicality" after their lengthy inquiries into Di Stefano.
A highly dubious operator, with a track-record of failed companies.
In 1991, Giovanni Di Stefano became company secretary of Sandhurst Assets plc. Other directors included a Tanya Di Stefano - it is not clear if she was a relation - and a Richard Page. A Reverend Dr Richard Page has accompanied Di Stefano on his trips to Dens Park. He was one of four people recently appointed "Associate Directors" by Dundee FC even though there is no such class of directorate recognised by the SFA.
Though Di Stefano was not made personally bankrupt, Sandhurst Assets was later declared insolvent then put into liquidation and wound up by Whitbread the brewers.
He has been deported from the USA and banned from entering New Zealand as a prohibited immigrant.
Di Stefano’s banning from New Zealand was heavily publicised in that country in 1990. He had gone there claiming to have $100m to invest in property developments, but the New Zealand authorities refused him entry as a "prohibited immigrant", because they did not believe his assertion that he wasn’t John Di Stefano, convicted criminal.
Was deported from the USA in 1992 by the US Government. Federal Court documents published for the first time today show that when he appealed against the deportation decision in 1995, the court was told that he was found guilty in England "of offences involving fraudulent trading". The case notes add that "at his deportation hearing, Di Stefano admitted being deportable as an alien who was inadmissible at the time of his entry because he was convicted of a crime of moral turpitude."
Di Stefano had been in the USA on a highly-publicised attempt to buy the film studio MGM, a bid described in Variety newspaper by one executive of the film company as the stuff of "Alice in Wonderland." MGM later won damages from Di Stefano.
Recently, serious doubt has been cast in an English court over Di Stefano’s claim that he is an Italian avvocato (lawyer).
In November of last year, the High Court in London upheld a decision by a prison governor to refuse Di Stefano permission to visit Palmer in jail because of doubts about the Italian’s status as an ‘avvocato’. He was apparently unable to provide the documentary evidence to support his assertion that he is a qualified advocate.
He falsely claimed that he earned a doctorate from Cambridge University in 1981. He has also called himself Doctor in the past, as he would be entitled to do if he had obtained a PhD.
In Marquis Who’s Who, Di Stefano claims to be a fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Microscopical Society. Neither Fellowship is an honour. They can be bought over the internet - the former costs £150 to obtain and the latter £115.