euFootball.BIZ covering the professional football (soccer) business - Soros reps to meet Roma
George Soros is now in the frame to take over Roma & its €350M debts, following previous interest by John Fisher (another American billionaire).
This is an interesting one - I was about to post about how its terrible that another great Eurpoean club is being prostituted to the Yanks (who, as we all know wouldn't be able to explain the offside rule for a billion bucks) ...
but ... Soros is actually a Hungarian by birth and lived there into his teens (so I guess does have football in his blood). While he made his money from stock market speculation, he is now a noted philanthropist and he certainly wasn't born with a sivler spoon in his mouth. As a Jew, he survived both the Nazi and then the communist occupations before escaping to the west and worked his way up via many menial jobs in the UK before he made it big in USA.
I knew very little about him but having just scanned his Wikipedia biog, he sounds a fascinating character. He opposes Bush, and he puts his money where his mouth is in terms of promoting democracy, education, gun control etc. On the other hand he did break the bank of England and his currency speculation has wreaked havoc in South East Asia too ...
I see the Roma fans don't at all fancy the prospect of him taking over their club, and that the general feeling appears to be that it must be kept in Italian ownership.
What do people think - should Roma be kept in Italian hands at all costs; if not, would Soros maybe not turn out to be a much better patron than the nouveau riche Abramovich or that nouveau scouse comedy act (Gillet & Hicks)?