This is also a phrase used to describe the practice — increasingly common in South America — of keeping footballers in minor teams until their value has risen sufficiently to be sold on at a handsome profit.
This ploy appears to have been used in the most audacious of circumstances last week with the unexpected signing by West Ham of the Argentine World Cup stars Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.
The pair, both aged 22, are thought to be worth at least £15m each, yet it appears that West Ham secured their registrations for nothing. The players will use Upton Park as a glorified shopfront where they will gain European experience and visibility, hoping to increase their value, and after a certain time be sold off to a bigger club. West Ham stand to make little — possibly nothing — from the sale.
The man who stands to benefit most from the transaction is Kia Joorabchian, the 35-year-old businessman who negotiated the deal on behalf of the players. Joorabchian was until recently the director of Media Sports Investments (MSI), a company that runs the football department of the Brazilian club Corinthians, where Tevez and Mascherano have played for the past season and a half.
Since Friday, when West Ham revealed that they were in talks about a takeover of the club, it has also become clear that the most probable candidate is Joorabchian, adding another layer of intrigue to what is already the strangest, most unexpected transfer saga of the summer.
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Joorabchian, who was born in Iran and educated in Britain and Canada, is possibly the first of a new breed of football entrepreneur — a mixture of agent, management consultant and high-stakes investor. He isTevez and Mascherano’s manager and mentor, as well as a man with a desire to use them to further his ambitions in the boardroom.
His first foray into football came two years ago, when he tried to put together a bid to take over Arsenal. He supports the club and owns an executive box there. Joorabchian eventually decided against, instead looking to South America. He said last year: “I probably could have managed to do the (Arsenal) deal, although I didn’t think (2004) was the correct year to buy because I don’t think I could have managed to do much better than they were doing already.”
A smart businessman before he is a football fan, Joorabchian is always looking at the bottom line. This weekend he said he had focused on Brazil because it is a breeding ground for world-class players: “My strategy is to buy them cheaply, develop them into players good enough for the top European clubs and sell them for top prices. If West Ham are going to the next level, they have to have young players. These players are an investment . . . they can make big profits.”
With Corinthians he spotted a team that had not fulfilled its earning potential. It had the second-largest fan base in Brazil, but, like almost all clubs there, was deep in debt. In 2004 Joorabchian founded MSI, backed by undisclosed investors, and entered into a 10-year deal with Corinthians in which the company would provide $35m (£18.3m) cash in return for 51% of future profits. He spent $22m buying Tevez from Boca Juniors, which is still the largest transfer fee in South American football. By investing in better players, he tripled the club’s sponsorship, doubled crowds and increased revenue by 500% in the first year. In his first season the club won the league.
With West Ham he now sees the same potential. He believes that with investment he can turn it into a club that challenges for titles, and therefore earn more money. If he can improve revenue by the success of players such as Tevez and Mascherano, whose increase in value also earns him money, then so much the better. MSI had ambitions to expand in Europe by taking over a club. Last year it was revealed that it had had a £90m bid for West Ham rejected. The contacts that Joorabchian made then meant that the channels were already open when, after the World Cup, he decided to bring MSI’s prize assets, the Argentinians, to Europe.
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Joorabchian has resigned from MSI — he says it is because his father died recently and he has had to move back from Brazil to London — yet he negotiated the transfer deal with West Ham. He says this is because the players are his “babies” and he remains their closest adviser. Now, as a lone investor, he is more flexible to enter into management of an English club. MSI has declared that it is not interested in investing in Europe.
Joorabchian’s time at MSI has been controversial because of his links with the exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky. A decade ago he bought a Russian newspaper, Kommersant, which was eventually sold to a Berezovsky group. Since then the two men have been friends.
Joorabchian strenuously denies that there is any Russian money behind either him or MSI, even though Berezovsky has flown to Brazil and had promised to build Corinthians a new stadium. If Joorabchian takes control of West Ham, it will increase speculation that Berezovsky, a former ally of Roman Abramovich, will be ploughing money into British football.
Joorabchian also denies that he or MSI has received money from the Georgian oligarch Badri Patarkatsishvili, owner of Dinamo Tblisi. However, on Friday Patarkatsishvili appeared to throw his hat in the ring by saying he was considering a takeover bid for the Hammers. “It is true that Kia Joorabchian is my friend and we have done business together in the past,” he said. “At this time I am not involved in any possible bid for West Ham, but I am thinking about it and cannot exclude such a possibility.”
In Brazil, Joorabchian has been a colourful figure, at times as popular with fans as the star players. Because of his relative youth he is a close friend of Tevez and Mascherano and he has often appeared in the dressing room or out socially with the Corinthians players. Even though Joorabchian paints his time at MSI/Corinthians as a success, many people in Brazil believe that it was a failure. Corinthians won the league last year, but they are currently third from bottom and the team failed Joorabchian’s main aim: to win the Copa Libertadores, which was won by another Brazilian club, Internacional, last month.
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When Joorabchian arrived in Brazil he said he was interested in improving the organisation of Brazilian football, insisting that he wasn’t just going to make profits by buying and selling players. Yet his critics say that now the team is performing badly, he has been only too keen to move on and take the best players with him.