Fulham Franchise Looks Far-Fetched

The prospective purchaser of London’s oldest professional football club, Shad Khan, owner of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, is already facing unrest amid rumours across the pond concerning the billionaire’s long-term domestic and global strategy.

If reports suggesting that 84-year-old Mohamed Al Fayed is in advanced talks to sell his beloved Fulham after 16 years at the helm for around £150m are true, Pakistan-born American businessman Khan could be in place with the Lilywhites before the new season kicks off but with the cause of his potential investment remaining unclear.

Khan, 62, seen below surveying Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge on a previous trip to the Capital, takes his team to Wembley on 27 October to ‘host’ reigning NFL Champions, the San Fransisco 49ers, as part of an agreement to play one game per year at the stadium for the next four years.

                                          Photo: Scott Heavey

He has referred to London as being “a missing piece” to the Jaguars franchise in relation to corporate sponsorship and, when asked if the Jaguars could make further appearances in the Capital in the future, he replied “Anything’s possible”.

This has led some critics to question his dedication to the Jacksonville venture and the latest stories emanating from London will not help quell growing scepticism towards the direction the club seems to have taken during his 18-month tenure.

Upon buying the Florida outfit, he was said to have verbally agreed with previous owner Wayne Weaver not to uproot the team from its home and, although the Daily Mail have today followed the lead of US media personnel such as CBS’s Jason La Canfora and Pro Football Talk Editor Mike Florio in suggesting the Jaguars will eventually become a London-based entity, this still seems unlikely for logistical reasons, reflected in the fact that no franchise has relocated since the Tennessee Oilers’ move to Nashville in 1998.

This is particularly true of a move across the Atlantic due to issues such as travel costs, taxes and, above all, the enduring availability of Wembley, taking into account Craven Cottage’s limited capacity.

However, it is obviously a sensitive issue as, only last month, the Jaguars were forced to deny any possibility of their team playing more than one game per year in London following comments made by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell implying that the total number of NFL games taking place at Wembley could increase to three annually within the foreseeable future.

From an investment perspective, Al Fayed’s conversion of £200m into equity last year, essentially rendering the club debt-free and Financial Fair Play-compliant, and obtaining of planning permission for the renovation of the Riverside Stand that will increase accommodation at the stadium to over 30,000, would seem to make the West London club an attractive proposition, especially as the redevelopment is to include installation of a ‘Chairman’s box’ providing any new owner with the perfect view from which to oversee his acquisition on match days.

The Jaguars have reportedly secured a range of exclusive marketing rights through the Wembley arrangement in return for loss of match day revenue from one of eight regular season contests in each of their next four campaigns.

Khan is a shrewd entrepreneur worth circa $2.5 billion and, far from losing their team to London, should exhibition matches bring Fulham to the Sunshine State in the off-season, this could re-energise the city of Jacksonville itself with interest in football never higher, highlighted by the record-breaking 44,428 crowd at Everbank Field who witnessed the national team’s 5-1 destruction of Scotland in May.

A more intriguing, if mischievous, motive for buying a Premier League club would be to compete against Stan Kroenke, the man who thwarted Khan’s attempts to purchase the St. Louis Rams by exercising an option in February 2010, as the Missouri man is currently the majority shareholder at Arsenal.

Kroenke would not be his only familiar foe by any means, as Khan, who made his fortune as a car parts manufacturer with Flex-N-Gate Corp in Illinois, would join a growing list of Americans in the English top tier, with Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Sunderland all under US-stewardship, although he should scarcely feel the need to be in the company of his compatriots too strongly in any event, being the only non-American-born owner in the NFL and with his place in the elite 500 richest people on Earth to give him some comfort.