Takeover stakeholders must realise Roma will not be build in a day

New investment is no guarantee for better display as the past has shown, writes Ian Hawkey

Roma fans will know by March 14 about the latest on the club's ownership status. Giuseppe Bellini / Getty Images

Italy may not have seemed the ideal place for a new overseas investor yesterday, with its stock markets jittery over inconclusive elections. But football lives in its own economic microclimate.

At Serie A's most frequently courted sleeping giant, there is fresh intrigue around a possible shift in ownership.

A process of due diligence is underway into the bid by Sheikh Adnan Al Qaddumi to take a stake worth around €50 million (Dh245m) in Roma, and the potential purchaser has been set a deadline of March 14 to come up with the funds.

Shares in Roma have fluctuated dramatically since news of the Sheikh's interest broke last week and local media began to probe, intrigued, into his profile.

Reports have Sheikh Adnan as a Jordanian by birth, but with a family tree that extends into the Saudi royal family. He is a resident of Perugia, a petroleum magnate who has lived in Italy for 25 years.

His interest does not instantly make Roma Italy's equivalent of Manchester City, whose uplift over the last four-and-half years owes so much to investment from Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, or Paris Saint-Germain, a club rising sharply thanks to the largesse of their Qatari owners, although, as with any Middle Eastern approach for a football club these days, these comparisons excite supporters.

But Roma's followers are also inoculated against heady speculations. It is only two years since the takeover of the club by an American group led by Thomas DiBenedetto made Roma the first Italian club with a majority shareholding in foreign hands, and while the club have made significant forays in the transfer market in that time, the rewards for that investment are not yet tangible.

Roma's last excursion in the Uefa Champions League predates the DiBenedetto group's takeover and a return to that competition in 2013/14 looks a very long shot.

Roma are eighth in the table; they were sixth when the Americans came in 22 months ago. DiBenedetto's successor as president, James Pallotta, is not looking to withdraw the US-based holding by talking to Sheikh Adnan.

But he is open to taking on a partner willing to invest in a stadium, give Roma - who like all Serie A clubs except Juventus, are tenants of their ground - their own home, and to further strengthen a squad with tantalising potential.

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