Shels in takeover bid!

[Anto McC]

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

[Terry]

Sweet mother of God! Is this him?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,818840,00.html

[Poor Student]

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]

Brilliant! Someone else to hate at shels.

[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.

[Poor Student]

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]

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=954&id=1129122003

:( :eek:

[Risteard]

:D 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]

You couldn't make this up.

Arkan, Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, Ollie Byrne. :D

[bluemovie]

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]

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....? :eek:

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.....? :D

[MrJoeSoap]

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! :mad:

Don't want him anywhere near the club.

[dcfcsteve]

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! :mad:

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]

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? :D

[Schumi]

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

[Réiteoir]

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

Keeping it in "The Family" :D

[pineapple stu]

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]

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.

[MrJoeSoap]

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

Did he say anything of interest to Shels fans?

[pineapple stu]

Sorry Joe - is that Ollie or Gio you're talking about?

(Boom boom :o)

[stickyjoe]

But why announce it to the world ?

the story had already been broken in some morning papers before it was announced on the web

[pineapple stu]

Deny it then, surely?

[Schumi]

Did he say anything of interest to Shels fans?
The jist of it was that he wasn't looking to buy the club, just 'invest'. He said something along the lines of he wouldn't be invesing millions but it wouldn't be a tenner either. The interviewer asked him about his past and how that would fit in with Shels' "family values". He didn't say anything about the fraud mentioned above, just about defending Sadaam, etc. Apparently Dutchie Holland is innocent and a lovely man. :rolleyes: He waffled on about the Champions' League as well, the usual pie in the sky stuff, nothing of any real interest.

[MrJoeSoap]

Deny it then, surely?

Or tell the truth... :)

Thanks for the synopsis, hopefully more news will become clear in the next few days.

[stickyjoe]

IMO a publicity stunt from all sides, would be very surprised if anything meaningful comes of it.

[pete]

You couldn't make this stuff up. Match made in heaven or hell surely :D

[sonofstan]

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

Nominations now open for the post of Smithers...

[Terry]

Nominations now open for the post of Smithers...
has to be fenlon ?:D

[Red4Eva]

if nothing ever comes from this story at least it'll put a smile on every eL fan's face&maybe get us a wee bit of media exposure

i'd love it if this guy took over shels, what's the worst that could happen? they go bankrupt? might happen soon enough anyway

[A face]

You couldn't make this up.

Arkan, Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, Ollie Byrne. :D

You actually couldn't make this up, if someone posted this last week, it wouldn't have been entertained for a minute, it is quite literally a serious bit of material for every fanzine in the country. Talk about a story made for a club, i feel sorry for the Shels fans, totally beyond their control ..... this will never go away .... Never !! :p

[EnDai]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/irish/4927002.stm

[A face]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/irish/4927002.stm

I hope Ollie is means what he says when hes only listening to him. Total control .... i have a feeling i know where that is going to end.

[dcfcsteve]

"Saddam lawyer eyes investment in Shelbourne"

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=365409&cc=5739

[dcfcsteve]

Sorry Joe - is that Ollie or Gio you're talking about?

(Boom boom :o)

C'mon Stu - be fair now. It's clearly not Ollie.

No-one would believe that he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts........

:D :p

[EnDai]

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/04/20/story255082.html

A new link, the exact same story is reported on several sites, citing a €1m bid for a minority shareholding. The text also says this would wipe out all debts overnight, and leave money for on-pitch dealings.

[dcfcsteve]

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/04/20/story255082.html

A new link, the exact same story is reported on several sites, citing a €1m bid for a minority shareholding. The text also says this would wipe out all debts overnight, and leave money for on-pitch dealings.

I'd suspect that Di Stefano's technique for "wiping out" debt may have more to do with concrete boots and horses heads, than Blankety Blank chequebooks and pens....

[OneRedArmy]

I'd suspect that Di Stefano's technique for "wiping out" debt may have more to do with concrete boots and horses heads, than Blankety Blank chequebooks and pens....he'll get on swmmingly at Shels then. A true meeting of minds between him and the criminal.

[pineapple stu]

C'mon Stu - be fair now. It's clearly not Ollie.

No-one would believe that he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts........

:D :p
I could believe that Ollie bought the title off the internet though.


is quite literally a serious bit of material for every fanzine in the country
Yep, I think STIG is going to have a field day on this! Can think of the captions now...Dodgy businessman who has spent time in jail and has had numerous shady dealings with dodgy characters...and Giovanni di Stefano.

It does raise a serious issue though - that of fit and proper tests for people getting involved with clubs. Despite the problems at Rovers - and to a lesser extent, at Shels - there is no such test in Ireland, as far as I know. This should be written into UEFA Licencing as soon as possible, in my opinion.

Edit - anyone got a link to the Dundee forum?

[sonofstan]

http://www.thedees.co.uk/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=22

[Poor Student]

Nominations now open for the post of Smithers...

Is Byrne is Mr. Burns then Fintan Cassidy is Smithers, no?

[manic da hoop]

Nominations now open for the post of Smithers...

I thought Fintan Cassidy has held that position for years!

:p

[Poor Student]

I thought Fintan Cassidy has held that position for years!

:p

If that's not a case of great minds think alike then I don't know what is.;)

[Pauro 76]

Cant deny its giving them publicity anyway. Bit like when Galway United made the news in the media over here with the Nick Leeson being marketing director thing.....

[OneRedArmy]

Cant deny its giving them publicity anyway. Bit like when Galway United made the news in the media over here with the Nick Leeson being marketing director thing.....thats white collar crime, it doesn't count...........;)

[hamish]

Janey, when I first saw the headline in Aertel, I thought it was Alfredo di Stefano and wondered were Shels linking up with Real Madrid??:eek:

It's all coming together now - Di Stefano, Saddam Hussein, WMDs - expect a thorough search of Tolka Park any minute by Hans Blix.:D

[EnDai]

Controversial legal figure Giovanni di Stefano has said his potential investment in Shelbourne football club is not a takeover.

Speaking from Rome, Di Stefano, who is known as the "devil's advocate" and has advised Saddam Hussein and former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, said his involvement with the Drumcondra club would be "minor" and in the form of a "participation agreement".

He also said there was another unnamed Irish club he had considered investing in. "There were two clubs in Ireland. One, a smaller club south of Dublin, wanted a complete takeover for smaller money, but I wasn't interested in that."

Shelbourne chief executive Ollie Byrne today confirmed the club had received a preliminary approach from the Italian-born lawyer who also represents Patrick "Dutchy" Holland, the man named in court as having shot journalist Veronica Guerin.

"Ollie Byrne has had this club in his family for generations and I can safely assure all connected with the club that his association with Shelbourne will remain as strong as it ever was," Di Stefano said.

"This will remain his club, not mine, as I'm not experienced in this game . . . sure I didn't know the offside rule until recently."

Byrne said: "We know very little about him and out of courtesy we have accepted an invitation to meet with him. We will approach the meeting with open minds and listen to what he has to say."

The primary concern is to secure the future of Shelbourne FC, said the Dubliner, and "nothing would be done to jeopardise this".

Di Stefano approached Byrne following the club's recent tax problems.

Earlier this month, Shelbourne cleared outstanding arrears due to the Revenue Commissioners totalling some €300,000.

"The club had tax issues and I saw an opportunity to help. I see this a minimal risk investment where I can freely spend half a million euro or even a million euro," Di Stefano said.

Shelbourne supporters have greeted the news with caution.

It is not the first time Di Stefano, who was given a five years prison sentence for fraud in 1986, has turned his attention to football.

In 1999 he approached former Scottish SPL side Dundee with a view to taking over, but a deal fell through. Subsequent attempts to gain controlling interests in Norwich City and Northampton Town also ended in failure.

Di Stefano renewed his interest in Dundee in August 2003 offering to invest £26 million to save the club, but his position as a director was never officially ratified by the Scottish Football Association.

In November 2003, Dundee was placed in administration with debts nearing £20 million. Di Stefano, having fallen out with the Marrs, resigned two months later.

The club argued that Di Stefano failed to arrange the funding he had promised, but he strongly refutes this. He claims he wanted to buy the club for a nominal fee and take over the debts, but the Marrs, who are still Dundee board members, were not convinced Di Stefano had the required funds in place.

While Di Stefano does not claim to be friends with Saddam Hussein he has called the former Iraqi leader a "nice man". "Saddam is not my pal," he once said. "A pal is someone who you go drinking with."

The Italian has also claimed to have worked on an appeal for British serial killer Dr Harold Shipman and says he briefly met Osama bin Laden in Baghdad in 1998.

Of his high-profile, controversial, client list he has said: "I deal with people who are alleged to have committed serious criminal offences. I do not defend Snow White unless she is charged with the seven perverts."

Bray were interested? Well, assuming the "small club south of Dublin" is infact Bray. Or could it have been Waterford?

[OneRedArmy]

Bray were interested? Well, assuming the "small club south of Dublin" is infact Bray. Or could it have been Waterford?I was thinking Cork myself.......(adjusts helmet and awaits outpouring of moral outrage from the residents of God's own country).

[thejollyrodger]

I welcome the move. Shels need investment even if its from Saddams best mate. It will be good for the league !

[Speranza]

No mate what Shels need is a Specsavers in Tolka as you lot are blind to everything going on in your club. You are so laughably foolish that despite hating your club I will pity you when everything blows up.

[Roverstillidie]

I welcome the move. Shels need investment even if its from Saddams best mate. It will be good for the league !

are you on smack? have you read ANY of this....

was he good for dundee?:rolleyes:

i reckon you try to be controversial for the sake of being controversial.

by what concievable logic would a convicted fraudster, masquerading as a lawyer with a history of shady business practices be 'good for the league'?

if you think he has this kind of cash you are a tremendous pillock.