By Paul Nicholson
February 22 – While Jordan’s Prince Ali enters the final week of his second quest to conquer the top table of world football and become FIFA president, one of his billionaire subjects has shown a much more humble ambition by buying a 92% stake in fourth tier English club Bristol Rovers.
Wael Al-Qadi has become Bristol Rovers’ club president while former Swansea City chairman Steve Hamer will become the club’s chairman. Bristol, in the west of England, is the only major British city without a Premier League football club.
“It’s not a hit and run. I’m a football fan. It’s not an investment, it’s an ownership,” Al-Qadi told local television.
Rovers, founded 133 years ago as the Black Arabs named after a the Arabs rugby team and the black kit they wore, have played most of their football in England’s third and fourth professional divisions. They were promoted back into what is now League Two last season after a year in the Conference.
The new owners brought good fortune with them as well as their personal fortune. Rovers beat Morecombe at the weekend to lift themselves into the play-off positions, just four points off automatic promotion.
Despite being a billionaire Al-Qadi is not the usual football investing glory hunter seen in English, and Bristol Rovers would not be an automatic choice of clubs to buy though it does represent and intriguing challenge for a football enthusiast with an ambition to build.
Al-Qadi is vice president of the Asian Development Football Foundation, which was founded by Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein in 2012, and has also held a role on the marketing committee of the Jordanian Football Association. He was a core team member in Prince Ali’s successful campaign to be elected vice president of FIFA in 2011, though has not figured in his FIFA presidential campaign.
The Bristol challenge is intriguing because the west of England is not served by a top tier club. Rovers’ cross city rival Bristol City are making progression in the dogfight to avoid relegation from the Championship, and are currently the region’s highest performing club.
The club has ambition and is coming to the end of a £45 million redevelopment of its Ashton Gate stadium which will see capacity increase to 27,000 for the start of the 2016/17 season.
Rovers have new stadium ambitions but they have been stalled for the past 11 years by planning disputes and a lack of finance. Al-Qadi says that he hopes he can bring some momentum to the process.
“This football club requires and needs a new stadium. Once we are ready to go ahead with that project, we will,” he said.
“There’s a lot of work that has been done, but I have to come in and verify or make sure everything is in order, 100%, before taking the next step.”
While Prince Ali is promising revolution at FIFA if he is elected president, in the more genteel world of western England his friend is promising “evolution rather than revolution”.
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