The previous owner of the English football club Crystal Palace, Simon Jordan, has claimed that the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi tried to buy the team from him.
Mr. Jordan was the owner of the Eagles from 2000, until the club went into administration in 2010. After Palace was promoted to the Premier League in 2004, reports circulated that Gaddafi was interested in buying the club. At the time, Gaddafi already owned a small share in Italian Serie A giant Juventus.
Jordan told talkSPORT, “A long, long time ago in a land forgotten, Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi tried to buy Crystal Palace from me. Does it seem like an impracticable, implausible partnership to own a football club? I don’t think they are going to be involved in the day-to-day running, they will employ people for them.”
But in 2004, Jordan told the Guardian that, “If Gaddafi’s money was able to progress Palace and allow them to compete at the top of the tree, and be a successful football club, then one would have to take that into consideration.”
However, a former government spokesman said in 2013, “Mr. Gaddafi had been informed about the rumours of a possible interest to buy Crystal Palace, but he wasn’t involved in this situation.”