So it appears that upon further investigation, i.e. reading the press reports a bit more closely, Fulham chairman Mohamed Al Fayed has sold at least part of our ground to a company with Fulham in its name but with little else that suggests a return to football at Craven Cottage. Fulham River Projects Ltd is its name and developing riverside housing is clearly its game.
The fact that Fayed says some 15m pounds has resulted from the “non-sale” of the Cottage means that a transaction has taken place. Some part of some company that owns some part of Craven Cottage has been sold and is now partially out of the hands of Fayed. His protestation that the Cottage has not been sold is no doubt true in the sense that the majority is sill in his control. But anyone who knows anything about business will know what this ultimately means.
No doubt it will take the back pages of Private Eye to decipher exactly what he has been up to as most other journalists seem incapable of digging beneath the increasingly frail PR layer that Fulham presents. But it’s a shame we had to gain what success we have in this manner.
Fulham Leisure Holdings (BVI) Ltd, Fayed’s BVI-based holding company, arranged a sale of the club to Fulham River Projects Ltd. Fulham Football Club (1987) Ltd owns the ‘club’ in the form of its name, its player contracts and so on. Any Fulham fan that remembers the prospect of ‘Fulham Park Rangers’ playing at Loftus Road or Stamford Bridge will know the significance of that date and owes a debt of gratitude to Jimmy Hill and the Muddyman family for ensuring that wasn’t the death of the club.
It’s a lot easier to deal with this not being near the place while this is going on. But I’m glad I was there for what was a dire, but apparently final league game at the Cottage in April.
Fulham will move on, no doubt at a ground-share with either Chelsea or QPR. It won’t be the same, far, far from it. But hopefully it will be better than some of the other time many of us have spent at the Cottage.