Put there by a Syrian friend, Tahnoon Nimer, presumed administrator of a royal investment fund in the Emirate, Claudiu Florică immediately announced that the next step of the investor group will be to take over the Dinamo club.

Florică and Mihail, a passionate football and aviation lawyer, have replaced Matt Southall and Jonathan Heller, two directors appointed by Tahnoon Nimer to the club since taking over Charlton Athletic in January 2019.

The first of them, Matt Southall - a former football and hockey player and former player agent - was scandalously removed from the Board of Directors, but he is still the club's executive director, with a salary of 300,000 pounds a year.

He is accused by Nimer of spending the club's money unreasonably for the past two months.

Matt Southall and Tahnoon Nimer at the time they took over Charlton, and the tensions between them had not begun

The second director, Jonathan Heller, was the general secretary of the reputed European Atomic Energy Agency in the 1990s, then the director of a major UK pension fund. Last year, he was listed as Chief Executive Office (CEO) on the site of Abu Dhabi Business Development, the alleged investment fund run by Tahnoon Nimer. on behalf of Sheikh Saeed Bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan.

Heller - who played the role of independent director in the club - was not accused of anything, but he was also removed from the club.

In the last two days, Gazeta tried to talk with all the important people involved in the tense events at the Charlton English club in order to understand how the investment fund interested in taking over the Dinamo Bucharest club.

Who is Charlton Athletic?

Founded in 1905, Charlton Athletic lived its glory periods just before World War II, when it fought for the title in the first league, then between 2000 and 2004 when it was close to taking a Champions League place. . The club in south-east London subsequently reached twice in the third league, and now ranks 22nd (relegation) out of 24 in the Championship, second league

The Valley Stadium, target for a real estate project

On November 29, 2019, while in Romania the talks about the interest of the businessman Claudiu Florică for Dinamo were extinguished, the English press announced the takeover of the Charlton Athletic club by Arab investors.

In the last 5 years, the club had been owned by the Belgian Roland Duchatelet, had collected debts of 7 million pounds, and the fans had already started protest movements against the employer considered a "skinny dictator".

“The investor group has given 65 million euros to Charlton and wants to buy Dinamo. They are associated with Claudiu Florică ”
- Anamaria Prodan Reghecampf , January 13, 2020, at GSP Live

This is how East Street Investments Limited, a newly established company in the UK, was featured by Tahnoon Nimer, a 44-year-old Syrian who is recommended doctor and administrator of the Royal Abu Dhabi Business Development fund, and by Matt Southall.

According to the agreement between the two, Nimer - through Panorama Magic General Contracting LCC - had 65 percent of the shares, Southall 35 percent.

1,300,000 pounds are Charlton's monthly expenses, according to Matt Southall

The official takeover of the club from Ronald Duchatelet took place on January 2, 2020. The British press carried the price of 50 million pounds, but the people brought by Nimer to Charlton explained for GSP the more complicated business plans.

The original price paid was only one pound! The rest had to come from a real estate project.

Charlton's new stadium according to the project presented by Tahnoon Nimer in negotiations with Duchatelet

“The plan to pay Duchatelet's money is to relocate the club to a new stadium, located above the Thames, near the O2 Arena. By then, Charlton was going to play at Crystal Palace. The Valley (no - Charlton Stadium) it was going to be demolished and Nimer was seeking to obtain the approvals for the erection of a 1,000-apartment complex, and from the profit generated to pay Duchatelet the price for the club ” , explained Matt Southall for GSP.

Jonathan Heller summed it up: “I can't contradict what Southall said! But I certainly tell you that Duchatelet requested a guarantee from Tahnoon. It was not only based on the success of this real estate project, but accepted a guarantee from Tahnoon. ”

Southall says Nimer's guarantee was 50 million pounds payable over the next five years, but that the Syrian who wants to buy Dinamo has no serious cover for that money.

Nimer's $ 50 million guarantee. Southall says the English League considered the document "unconvincing", but Nimer refused to accept the check at the bank

In fact, according to Southall, Nimer did not invest any pounds in Charlton in the nearly three months after taking over, instead he spent the money found in the club.

From here, he says, the civil war in Charlton began.

Shopping at Harrods, for club money

"They are fraudsters, and the Abu Dhabi Business Development Investment Fund is a scam," says Southall about the group led by Tahnoon Nimer, his associate since taking over Charlton.

The Gazette came into possession of a fragment of a bank statement on a card linked to Charlton's accounts, apparently used by Nimer for personal purposes. According to the document, on February 5, 2020, Charlton's Syrian financier would have spent £ 290 at London's famous Harrods, and on February 17 he paid £ 2,797 for a meal at a restaurant in Dubai.

Southall says that, after the expenses were discovered, Nimer's access to the accounts was blocked: "Until I did that, Nimer and his advisers removed 50,000 pounds in a month."

"The takeover of the club took place on January 2. The chief financial officer told Nimer that he must bring in $ 5 million to start, but he has not made any money so far. The only money Nimer has made in Charlton since January has been that lira paid to Duchatelet, which I also paid "
- Matt Southall , for GSP

Heller knows about the document and confirms it. The former head of European atomic energy, however, is far more reserved than Southall.

Heller - who says he is no one's ally in the Charlton conflict - carefully chooses his words: "If you ask me if there was more money left from Charlton to Tahnoon than from Tahnoon to Charlton, without discussion there was more money left from Charlton's accounts to those of Tahnoon. But the same is true of Southall. However, many stories have been told about Matt Southall's expenses and I have a suspicion that many of them are not true. ”

“Matt Southall is a person with a certain lifestyle, and this lifestyle is justified only if you have a well-funded club behind. I think he sincerely believed, as I believed, that Tahnoon's promises on financing will be fulfilled.
- Jonathan Heller , former director at Charlton, for GSP

The fans jump at Southall's neck

Southall was accused by Nimer of using a Ranger Rover and expensive apartment after their entry into the club, paid for by the club's money. Nimer also posted on Instagram the address of the apartment so fans can go and ask for it.

From that moment, Charlton's supporters turned against Southall, setting up Nimer's social media networks in the civil war.

"Tahnoon wanted to turn the fans against me. That apartment was for Tahnoon when he came to England. And his advisers used that apartment. Car? Yes, I have a car from the club, but his advisers have cars from the club. The club manager has a service car . The only money I took was the money recovered for the expenses of taking over the club, the rest were my salaries ”, defends Southall.

"Boss with friends". Tahnoon Nimer, Claudiu Florică (second from right) and two friends in London

"When Tahnoon did not live up to his promise to raise money, the Syrian started an offensive and said he must first get rid of Southall in order to finance the club."
- Jonathan Heller , former director at Charlton, for GSP

Among the arguments made by fans on Twitter against Southall was a story that took place in 2004, when a certain Matthew Southall - then a 19-year-old hockey player at the Blackburn Hawks - pleaded guilty to the charge of theft. Southall was part of a group that stole CDs, DVDs and video games from stores.

"Yes I am. I was young, I got into an inappropriate environment and got a slap in the life. My life changed completely, I graduated from college and got a master's degree ” , admits Charlton's executive director in discussion with GSP.

On Friday, he was removed from the Board of Directors. Like Heller, the man brought by Nimer from his investment fund.

Sources: Tahnoon, the illegitimate child of a sheik

Southall and Heller did not know each other until last year when, through the same common knowledge, they were presented separately to Tahnoon Nimer, a Syrian citizen born in 1976 in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.

Gazette sources claim that Tahnoon Nimer - Tahnoon Al Nasirat, on the name of the Syrian passport used to enter the United Kingdom, or Tahnoun Al Nsiriat, according to the Emirates Driving License - is the illegitimate son of one of the sheikhs of the Al Nahyan family, the influential ruling family. from the United Arab Emirates.

On his Instagram page, Nimer frequently posts shocked photos and videos around the three most important sheikhs of the Al Nahyan family, and in particular pictures with the state leader, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known by the planet's leaders under the nickname "MbZ". However, Nimer appears in a close posture just next to Sheik Saaed Bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan.

Tahnoon Nimer, caught up with Sheikh Saaed Bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan, a member of the Emirate royal family. Source: Instagram

“I also heard the story that he is the son of a sheik, made with a housekeeper, and that he is married to one of the daughters of Mohammed Bin Zayed, the ruler of the Emirates. But after a visit to Dubai, this variant does not stand up ” says Southall, the chief executive officer and also the minority shareholder in the company that controls Charlton.

Earlier in the year, Southall went to the Emirate to talk to his Syrian business partner. "When we arrived, I was expecting to go to a palace, but we arrived at an office on a side street, somewhere on the 1st floor. Nimer drove us in a six-year-old Mercedes. We did not meet anyone from the royal family . ”

The newspaper showed Southall a picture posted by Nimer in 2015 (photo, above) , on his Instagram account, with a panorama of a skyscraper, along with the comment "view from my office". The Englishman laughed: "It's not his office. Everything that makes this guy smells from a scam post. "

On the same Instagram account of Nimer, there is a photo with a diplomatic passport from the Emirate that suggests that the Syrian would be the holder of the document. The information upset Southall and Heller. “If he really had that diplomatic passport, he would no longer go through the difficult formalities of entering the UK. He came in with a Syrian passport, a country at war, imagine it was difficult to get a visa, ”says Southall.

Heller adds: “At one point, Nimer told me I would owe him if I could get him a South African passport. If he had a diplomatic passport from the Emirate, why did he need all the complication with the Syrian passport? ”.

Tahnoon entered the United Kingdom using the citizenship of a state, Syria, considered a terrorist in the West. The same passport would also have been used to enter Romania where he was caught last week by the Cancan paparazzi at a table in the Mandaloun restaurant with businessman Alex Sadagorschi and Cristi Gîrleanu, a nephew of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Tahnoon Nimer is actually Tahnoon Al Nasirat. In his driving license, his name appears as Tahnoun Al Nsiriat

Romanian journalists called him a sheik and announced that Tahnoon had come to negotiate with Negoiță to take over Dinamo through his investment fund. But, says Jonathan Heller, who was the CEO of Abu Dhabi Business Development (ADBD), that fund is not, in fact, an investment fund.

“It is impossible to call ADBD a fund. It's a platform. Initially, ADBD was presented to me as a private equity investment fund, but I can say with certainty that ADBD is not that. A private equity fund has money. When I asked what funds they could use and what strategy they had, I received vague answers. I realized that this is a company that deals with the piece, ”says Heller.

The Gazette will publish tomorrow the second part of the investigation into the takeover of Charlton and Dinamo Bucharest, where you can read:

• what the former director of Abu Dhabi Business Development says about Tahnoon's business
• why Syrian Tahnoon has refused to submit to the English League the proof of the source of the promised investment money
• reports from the tense session in which Claudiu Florică and Marian Mihail were named "illegally" directors in Charlton
• disclosures from discussions on the plans of Tahnoon Nimer and Claudiu Florică about the investment in Dinamo

Claudiu Florică, Tahnoon Nimer and Marian Mihail could not be contacted for comment on the Charlton situation.

Image published by Cancan and ProSport with Tahnoon Nimer in a restaurant in Bucharest. Source: Cancan