Indian millionaire aims to buy British football club

Tuesday, 11 May 2004, 19:30 IST   |    1 Comments
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LONDON: Asians are poorly represented in the high-voltage British football but now a young Indian millionaire is all set to - imagine - buy the Coventry City football club! Last year Russian millionaire Roman Abramovich shook up the football circuit by buying Chelsea for nearly 200 million pounds. Coventry boy Jojar Dhinsa, 29, now wants to go one better on Abramovich and put in more than this amount in his favourite football club. Dhinsa has also set his sights on recruiting Ronaldo and David Beckham into the team. He says he can afford to invest more than the 200 million pounds the Russian oil magnate put into Chelsea. Dhinsa claims he and a group of eastern European backers from the oil and gas industry are prepared to inject millions into Coventry City, a Division One club. "Roman Abramovich put 150 million to 200 million pounds into Chelsea, and there's no reason why we can't match that or even beat it," Dhinsa told Eastern Eye. "In two years this club should be a premiership club, in three years it should be in Europe and in four years it will be winning trophies. "Nothing will be too big for the club. The calibre of players we will be looking for will be the Beckhams and the Ronaldos and the type of manager I would be after is someone like Claudio Ranieri, the current Chelsea manager. "The vision is so big, nothing is out of reach and if I want to beat Roman I will," he said. Dhinsa has also pledged to encourage Asian players into the game and promote football within the community so that more Asians will consider a career in football and not just be attracted to traditional jobs. He said he would love to have Asian players, like Newcastle striker Michael Chopra, if they were good enough because he wants the best. Dhinsa has not yet directly approached his hometown club with an offer leading Coventry City's chairman Mike McGinnity to suggest it is little more than a publicity stunt. He said when the consortium felt ready, which could be as early as next week, they would formally approach the club. Dhinsa is reported to have an estimated fortune of 40 million pounds and could make a bid for the club in the next two weeks. Earlier this month he was named Newcomer of the Year at the Asian Business Awards and says he intends to be a billionaire by the time he's 40. Although he now lives in a 4 million pound seven-bedroom house in Surrey he still returns to Coventry regularly where his mother, brothers and sisters live. Despite now owning 19 cars and having the King of Bahrain and Elton John as neighbours, he started out working as a paperboy for a local newsagent and says he's just a "Coventry kid" whose love of the place is behind his ambition to take over the club.
Source: IANS
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