“Friends and Supporters,We are delighted to announce that we have completed our acquisition of Nottingham Forest Football Club from the Estate of the late Nigel Doughty.
It is an honour and privilege for the Al-Hasawi family to assume control of this great club steeped in history and with the outstanding legacy left by its previous owner Nigel Doughty.
We know there are challenging times ahead of us to bring the club back to its glory days and we look forward with excitement towards a new, successful future.
Over the next few weeks we will be working closely with our players, on-field and off-field team members in preparation for the forthcoming season.
It has always been our intention to seek the opinion and counsel of the loyal fans with respect to the club’s future, on Saturday (July 14) we will be holding the new season shirt launch at the City Ground, along with a press conference. After this, we would be extremely happy to meet with the club’s friends and supporters. More information will be available on the NFFC Website in the coming days.
This is a tremendously motivating time for the family and club. You can be assured of our best efforts in bringing the Reds back to the top of the table.
Best Wishes To All,
Fawaz, Abdulaziz & Omar Al-Hasawi”
This is the news I’ve been waiting for all summer, in fact ever since the days after the sad passing of Nigel Doughty. It marks new age for Nottingham Forest, an age where us fans of the club can dream of success not fear relegation. The new owners are already showing ambition in sacking ‘championship quality’ manager Steve Cotterill and top managers like Mick McCarthy and even Glenn Hoddle have been linked to the reds. For too long we’ve been losing talent like Kris Commons and Gareth McCleary without a hope in hell of replacing them but with this new ownership comes spending money and room for contract re-negotiations. Simples? not quite.
I’m delighted but I do have a couple of fears, this consortium has experience in Football Club Ownership before but never on this scale. As much as I’d love to see the club bringing in new faces, the last thing I want is for the club to overspend and end up bankrupt like Rangers. We have seen Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour competing with each other for the signatures of top players, for example as recently as this summer with Eden Hazard and in 2008 with Robinho where Manchester City ended up paying £32,000,000 for the Brazilian who barely stayed for two seasons, I’d hate for Forest to unnecessarily overspend on players just so they could ‘beat’ other teams psychologically. Having said all this I’m sure that the Al-Hasawi family are very clever business men and won’t get involved in such games.
My only other concern stems from the fact that the official wealth of the Al-Hasawi family has not been announced. After witnessing the takeover of Blackburn Rovers from a foreign consortium it was clear that not all football club owners know what they’re doing and some see clubs as more of an ‘accessory’ than anything else and when Portsmouth were taken over by someone believed to be ‘mega rich’ they soon ended up in administration and have gone from FA Cup winners to a League One team. In short this concern is that the owners are not as rich as they are believed to be and have to be to own a top club in this age.
But I must stop whining, there is a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. Fawaz Al-Hasawi has said that he will draw up a short list of top players in England and ask the new gaffer if he wants them, promising no fewer than eight additions to the team. His bold statement of intent by sacking Cotterill has been received well by Forest fans, myself included. All in all it looks like a very positive addition to Nottingham Forest Football Club and one which will hopefully be a force for good.
I saw a headline yesterday ‘Good things come to those Kuwait’ a poor pun but beneath that lies 3 decades of hurt and frustration, lets hope that the Al-Hasawi’s are the saviours to end that wait.
You can follow Joseph on Twitter @josephperry9
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Blackburn is more because the owners don’t care about the club at all. They have the money, but just wanted to be known a little in England. Doesn’t seem like this is this situation. You’re looking for Mick Mccarthy, a far cry from Steve Kean.