The football season in England is over. Among the losers is Ebbsfleet United.
The professional North Kent, Thames Estuary club finished rock bottom of the National League, the fifth tier of the football pyramid, with 22 points from 46 games, managing just three wins and racking up a goal difference of minus 60. Down to the next tier Ebbsfleet goes.
Incredibly, despite it all, Ebbsfleet – which in 2008 was the first Kent club to win the FA Trophy – still attracts about an average of 1,450 hardy souls to each home game.
Ebbsfleet may be down, but "the Fleet" is not a club without soaring ambition. Last month, a public inquiry began into plans backed by the club for an 8,000-capacity stadium by the Thames. The surrounding Northfleet Harbourside development also includes 3,500 homes, a hotel, offices and retail space.
For those who follow the club’s fortunes and indeed the wider subject of football ownership, the planning application elicited a feeling of deja vu. Ebbsfleet’s owner until recently, and ultimate backer of the Northfleet Harbourside development, Abdulla Al Humaidi, has become synonymous with allegations of fraud, bankruptcy, convoluted corporate structures and shareholdings, and litigation.
As the Football Finance Bill wends its way through Parliament, with the central plank being the creation of an official regulator, Ebbsfleet acts as a case study for why an independent watchdog, one with the ability to conduct due diligence and rigorous testing before granting permission for a change of owner, is necessary. It also casts a spotlight on the uncanny ability of some folk to seemingly never disappear, to repeatedly rebound from apparently ruinous financial adversity with another grand scheme so dazzling that investors are seemingly willing to ignore a history of failure.
Off the field, Ebbsfleet’s fortunes are bound to Mr Al Humaidi and his family. The Kuwaiti businessman, 39, bought the club through his company KEH Sports in 2013. KEH Sports belongs to Kuwaiti European Holding Company (KEHC UK), according to the company’s accounts. This company, in turn, is owned by Kuwaiti European Holding Company KSC (Kuwait), of which Mr Al Humaidi has a majority shareholding and his family still owns.
He said he wanted Ebbsfleet to join the big time, to gain promotion to the senior leagues, with the intention to use that success to boost the area economically.
In happier days, the local area did once appear destined for a boom. Ebbsfleet was the site chosen for a stop on the Eurostar from London to Paris. However, the cross-Channel rail service quit using Ebbsfleet International, as the station was known, in 2020.
The club has faced turbulent times under its Kuwaiti leadership. Mr Al Humaidi faced financial issues at the club and issues with staff at Ebbsfleet, allegedly not paying the players wages on time over a year-long period as well as, they claimed, failing to provide correct medical insurance for the team. This led to players refusing to warm up and issuing a public statement to the fans. Ebbsfleet denied the claims.
Apparently in punishment for the players going public, Mr Al Humaidi allegedly refused to pay one set of salaries and put all the players on the summer transfer list. Ebbsfleet was then subjected to a transfer embargo for not paying a tax bill.
The football club was just one aspect, albeit a central one of Mr Al Humaidi’s supremely confident vision. Now, instead of using the team's success to boost the district, he is hoping that development can salvage the fortunes of a fast-sinking club. In its vaulting scope, the Northfleet Harbourside development has a familiar ring, echoing another local scheme that became a by-word for failure.
The Dublin medical graduate (he did not pursue a long career as a doctor, choosing instead to manage the family investment firm, Kuwaiti European Holding) also had designs on opening a theme park.
Nicknamed "Dartford Disneyland" in relation to its location on a spur between Dartford and Gravesend, the London Resort, as it was officially and immodestly titled, was to be built by London Resort Company Holdings, ultimately controlled by Mr Al Humaidi. He would link up with Paramount, the major Hollywood studio, and the rides were to have a film and TV flavour, with tie-ins to TV favourites Dr Who and Thunderbirds. The £3.5 billion ($4.73 billion) attraction would draw an estimated 12 million visitors a year and create 30,000 jobs.
The government was suitably impressed, even calling it a project of "national importance". At one stage, PY Gerbeau, the man charged with saving the Millennium Dome exhibition in 2000, was drafted in as chief executive, with former Tory minister Stephen Norris also involved. The London Resort’s opening was set for 2024.
Except it did not happen; Dartford Disneyland never materialised.
Rows about funding and a requirement to protect a rare type of spider that lived on the site sparked delays. Having racked up debts of more than £100 million and received many millions from investors, including £5 million from the British taxpayer, London Resort collapsed into insolvency and Mr Al Humaidi was declared bankrupt in November 2023.
That was not the end of it or him, however. Mr Al Humaidi is not someone to take "no" for an answer, as he tried to salvage the scheme. That only ceased when Paramount, which is owed £13.5 million, took legal action, accusing London Resort Company Holdings of trying to rush through a company voluntary arrangement, or CVA, under which companies are saved by their creditors.
In the High Court, Judge Sally Barber found three "serious and irremediable breaches of the terms" of the CVA, saying London Resort Company Holdings failed to supply sufficient evidence of the debts of £105 million on which it was supposedly pinning the rescue agreement.
There was claimed to be extra capital of £607 million due, but that was not forthcoming. Ms Barber noted that Mr Al Humaidi "continued to play a very active role in the company", even after his bankruptcy. In English corporate law, undischarged bankrupts are forbidden to take part in the running of a company without court permission.
The story gets no happier in Kuwait, where Mr Al Humaidi has repeatedly been sued by investors and others to whom he owes substantial amounts of. A recent judgment in Kuwait found him guilty of fraud and sentenced him in absentia to three years in prison, with the judgment itself stating that al-Humaidi’s investment firm had “been subject to many fraudulent cases [and] carried out money laundering operations.”
The new development at Northfleet is declared to be the brainchild of an Irish company called Landmarque Property. Landmarque is in turn owned by a UK company, Sierra Investments, which was one of Abdulla Al Humaidi's concerns until his bankruptcy, upon which his brother Dherar took charge. Dherar is a shareholder in Sierra, as is Hessa, mother of Dherar and Abdulla.
It was a similar story at Ebbsfleet United. On his bankruptcy, he resigned as chairman and appointed his cousin, Abdullah Aaaf Al Humaidi, as chairman. and Dherar and another cousin, Abdulrahman Al Humaidi, as directors.
Ebbsfleet United is proclaiming Northfleet Harbourside as a joint proposal between the football club and Landmarque – both of which are ultimately owned by Abdulla Al Humaidi. The operator of the new stadium will be Northfleet Harbourside Holding Company, which is owned by KEHC UK.
Mr Al Humaidi is denying he was ever the dominant force at Ebbsfleet United. Incredibly, and despite his own actions as owner of the club, he now claims that official Companies House filings indicating such were wrong – and that the people who submitted the documents made a mistake, as his holding was only 29 per cent not the 50-plus per cent as they said.
He says Dartford Disneyland "destroyed my life" and "ruined my reputation". He has won appeals against legal cases in Kuwait bar the one resulting in the three-year sentence, which he will also fight and he claims was due to a misunderstanding.
He may be bankrupt but he continues to live in Mayfair.
Northfleet Harbourside is testament to his remarkable powers of recovery. The local council and the football club’s supporters, who of course would love a brand-new ground, have given their approval. There is, though, plenty of opposition, particularly from local businessmen whose livelihoods depend on access to the Thames. The planning inquiry, which is expected to last well until June, will represent yet another attempt to get to the bottom of Mr Al Humaidi’s affairs.
Whether this saga will finish once and for all remains to be seen. Every occasion Mr Al Humaidi appears finished, he manages to bounce back with another eye-catching blueprint.
Alas, the same could not be said for Ebbsfleet United, not this season. The numbers – witness that goal difference – tell their own sad story.
