Nassef Sawiris

Mm-hmm.

When they failed to make the, um, Premiership again after losing the cham- the championship playoff final in 2018, um, they literally were also un- um, um, u- under threat of being declared bankrupt and being forced to wind up their operations, only for the new owners, the current owners, Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens, to come in and inject some cash in.

And, um, uh, not long afterwards, they sold them Jack Grealish.

They got a good, um, payment from that.

We have, uh, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, with Newcastle, PIF.

And then you have Aston Villa, uh, with Nassef Sawiris, the Egyptian billionaire.

The UAE was a trendsetter in this case, and what it did is that it brought in so much capital into a... not, not necessarily into a league, but into a country.

And I think that that there needs to be considered.

Um, and you know, there was a pretty dramatic conclusion to that first trip where Jim was escorted by the Marines back to the Cairo Airport to fly back to New York, and he realized, you know, on his, on his journey home that he couldn't put Americans on the ground in, in that kind of environment.

Uh, he had to rely on local Egyptian talent, and, uh, he ended up finding a prominent Egyptian investment banker, a man named Ashraf Zaki, um, that he was put in touch with by Nassef Sawiris, uh, one of Egypt's wealthiest, uh, businessmen, a pretty well-known international financier and, and business owner, billionaire.

Um, and this man, you know, introduced Jim, uh, to his investment banker, Ashraf Zaki, and, and, and, and, and Jim and Ashraf had a series of negotiations, and Jim knew from the moment that he met him that this, this man could help run the fund.

And so he convinced him to start his own, uh, private equity fund, and, and, and we would be the first client, the US government.

How much confidence do you have in the people running your club compared to a few years ago? Do you think they're, they're the group of people to be able to, um, to get you further up the table, like, on a consistent basis and stop having to, to sell individuals all the time?

time?Yeah, I mean, they've- the- it's very much Nassef Sawiris seems to be the, the real figurehead.

You've got Wes Edens and Na- Nassef Sawiris and, you know, I c- I can't say anything, anything bad about them at all.

You know, everything that they've done with Aston Villa since they took over when we were first in the championship has been brilliant and there was, there were...

They had entrusted Christian Purslow at the, at one time to be, like, the chief exec.

There's plenty of owners that will say, "Well, thanks, but no thanks.

We're quite happy where we are." But if that would allow the, some of the new owners, and if you take a look at Villa, you've got the Nassef Sawiris, the richest man in Egypt.

You've got Wes Edens, you know, a very successful US billionaire.

Clearly we've got Newcastle with a PIF fund.