Eli Papouchado owns a multinational property company based in Israel, with interests in the UK, the US, Africa and the Middle East. Of the high net worth investors whom Joorabchian hopes to persuade to buy the club, he is the first to be named.
Joorabchian had promised all prospective investors complete confidentiality and is said to be embarrassed by the leak. His intention is to head the consortium and take active control of the club himself. Ideally, the investors will be silent partners, whose interest in West Ham will be purely financial.
The 35-year-old, who is a close friend of Papouchado, helped to broker the controversial transfers of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano from the Brazilian champions Corinthians 10 days ago.
As revealed in The Sunday Times last week, no transfer fees were involved, to allow the players’ owner, Media Sports Investment (MSI), to sell them to another club without profit to West Ham in a year’s time. West Ham are also contractually obliged to play the Argentina internationals when they are fit, a clause that scared Portsmouth out of entering into a similar arrangement with MSI.
During his time as MSI’s director at Corinthians, Joorabchian failed to persuade the investment trust’s senior investors (the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili and an anonymous Israeli) to buy out West Ham. He has since resigned his position at MSI and is attempting to find alternative funding.
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Last week Joorabchian was seen dining with West Ham chief executive Paul Aldridge in London. On Tuesday he said he “had not ruled out the option of making a bid for West Ham. There can be no certainty that an offer will be made, nor as to the terms on which any such offer might be made”.
However, Joorabchian had earlier made the unlikely claim that his plans for West Ham could see them overhaul Chelsea as London’s premier football club. “In the near future West Ham can be bigger than Chelsea and maybe in seven years challenge Manchester United,” he said. Papouchado, known as “Papo” in the business community, established the Red Sea Group in the 1960s. Its operations involve the management of hotel, medical, residential and retail properties in his native Israel, Europe, America and South Africa. Red Sea has a global workforce of more than 1,000.
More recently, Papouchado’s son Avner has taken on a more active role in directing Red Sea. Four years ago the company bought a majority stake in the Irish business Gresham Hotels, restructuring the board before selling its shares. The proposed involvement of Papouchado will increase concerns over Joorabchian’s business model for West Ham. Joorabchian has talked openly of importing young South American talent to Upton Park, developing the players in the Premiership, then selling them on for commercial profit. It is clear that Papouchado has no interest in buying West Ham for the spectacle. “Eli wouldn’t know West Ham from West Brom,” said a business associate. “He is not really interested in football.”
Last night West Ham and Joorabchian declined to comment on Papouchado’s involvement.
Takeover rules restrict the club to a statement it released to the stock exchange on September 1: “The board confirms that it has had exploratory discussions in relation to a possible bid but these discussions are at a very early stage and there can be no certainty that an offer for West Ham will be forthcoming. The board also confirms that there is no contractual link between the signing of the players (Tevez and Mascherano) and the bid discussions.”