Rothschild caught offside again

Might investment bank Rothschild be regretting ever getting involved in sports finance?

David Moores, the man who sold Liverpool FC to the cash-strapped Tom Hicks and George Gillett, says that the bank (which was representing the two Americans) "telephoned a non executive director of LFC, Keith Clayton, to assure him that both were good for the money".

That misjudgement comes on top of another infamous Rothschild endorsement, this time of Qadbak - the mysterious British Virgin Island-based fund which supposedly was going to bankroll Sven Goran Eriksson's Notts County into the Premier League and buy the BMW Sauber Formula One team.

Despite nosey journalists questioning Qadbak's credentials for months before it vanished, the dodgy fund's reputation was sustained by the unquestioning support of Rothschild banker, Meyrick Cox. He told the Times that Qadbak was a "wholly reputable organisation”. D'oh!

Notts the way to do it

How nostalgic. The management buyout is back in vogue.
This time it is former England football boss, Sven Goran Eriksson, who seems to be positioning himself to takeover Notts County, the League Two club where he is director of football.
His partner in this "deal"? The club chairman Peter Trembling, a man who seems to enjoying hanging around with convicted fraudster Russell King and a businessman of such renown that he lives in a three bed semi in Sandiacre. Happy days!

Notts the way to do it

Russell King and Nathan Willett - the powerbrokers behind the QADBAK investment fund that's been bankrolling Sven Goran Eriksson's Notts County - seem to have realised rather too late that they were about to be fingered by the Fourth Estate.
Exposé after exposé has appeared in the papers this week about these mysterious moneymen and now one County insider reflects: "I thought there was something up. At last week's game, both Russell and Nathan said they didn't want to sit in the front row of the directors' box". D'oh!

Pavis bracing for a Brady bunch of fives

Karren Brady, the Birmingham City MD who is replacing Margaret Mountford as Sir Alan Sugar's sidekick on The Apprentice, is making another high profile public appearance tomorrow.
She will be in the boardroom at Meadow Lane to watch Sven Goran Eriksson's Notts County take on Burton Albion, the Football League newcomers who are managed by Mr Brady, aka Paul Peschisolido.
This invitation should rank as an even greater coup for Ms Brady than scooping her new reality telly role, after she famously fell out with County's former chairman, Derek Pavis, when he suggested that women should not be allowed inside football club boardrooms.
Pavis is likely to be in attendance tomorrow too. Developing...

Update: my story seems to have prompted bookmaker Paddy Power to start a betting market.