When Mohamed Fayed bought Fulham in 1997, he was ready to spend what it
took to take the club to the top.
The Harrods owner wanted to create the Manchester United of the south -
and five years and five managers after taking charge, his outlay looks set
to reach the nine-figure mark.
Fulham remain light years behind United, and their first season in top
flight football for 33 years included genuine relegation fears and ended
with the revelation that the club had record losses of £24m for
the year to last July.
Today, in his first in-depth interview since the losses were announced,
Fayed answers the club's critics and pledges to add to the £90m he
estimates he has already spent.
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Fulham Chairman and Owner
Mohamed Al Fayed answers the club's critics and pledges to add to
the £90m he estimates he has already spent
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Fayed predicts the results for the 12 months to June 2002 will show a similar
deficit, and said: "Yes, £24m was a very large sum of money to
lose but, sadly, that is the price of success in the utterly crazy world
of football these days. Nobody should be surprised.
"I simply had to speculate that vast amount of money - out of my
own pocket - in order to win promotion to the Premiership, and begin the
building process for the future.
"Even that kind of outlay does not guarantee success or a return
on your money, but I do it because I love football and Fulham has been
one of my passions for more than 30 years now. Even though we have secured
our Premier League place, when the figures are all added up, Fulham will
certainly record another huge loss this season, though not quite of the
same magnitude.
"I can afford to take the losses for a short time while I try to
build my dream of making Fulham one of the best clubs in Europe."
Fayed says his club earned around £20m from getting into the Premier
League, as well as £2m from reaching the FA Cup semifinal.
Staying up will be worth another £20m, but in addition to funding
transfer-market spending and all the normal costs for next season, he
is committed to paying for a professional ladies' team, not to mention
the building of a new stadium.
This is expected to cost £70m, and will require Fulham ground-sharing
with near-neighbours QPR at Loftus Road for two years from August of this
year. Players on the fringe of Tigana's squad can therefore expect to
be sold to help balance the books.
Fayed said: "Since I bought Fulham five years ago, with the help
of Kevin Keegan, Jean Tigana and others we have come a very long way in
a very short space of time. Perhaps that is why expectations are so high
here. There has been much ill-informed speculation that because we suffered
a poor run of results, which took us into a relegation battle, I was about
to sack Tigana. But what kind of logic would that make?
"As a devoted fan I suffered the same frustrations as all the supporters
over the fact that we created chances but failed to score goals. As the
chairman, I expressed my disappointment in no uncertain terms to the manager.
" But I appointed Jean Tigana because he had a magnificent-managerial
record in France and was rated by the experts as potentially one of the
top-five coaches in the world.
He has been unlucky in the transfer market. He wants at least three players
in key positions and we will be buying and selling in the summer to try
and complete the first-choice team which Jean needs.
"After that, we will need to buy some more so that we can accumulate
an all- round squad to cover for injury and suspensions.
"One of Jean's great strengths in France with Monaco was his development
of youth. He had Arsenal's Thierry Henry under his guidance for four years
and look what a complete footballer he turned out to be.
"Jean believes that given time he can develop Louis Saha, and others,
in the same way. That is why we spend money and time on our academy and
our youth policy.
"Sean Davis is the best example of our home-grown talent, but there
are plenty of other youngsters coming through the ranks, so the future
for Fulham looks exciting."
If it also happens to look costly, Fayed's answer for now appears to
be: So be it.