Gaddafi and His Bizarre and Financial Links With Italian Football

While separating politics from sports, I have decided to write about the links between the Gaddafi family, Libya, and Italian Football.

The links are bizarre and purely financial, with some love of sports in between. The two nations have had links in culture; Libya once was an Italian colony in the beginning of the 20th Century until World War II.

Bizarre?

Saadi Al-Gaddafi is the football loving son of the leader of Libya who was signed by the Serie A team Perugia in the beginning of the 2003-2004 season in Italy.

The previous contribution of Gaddafi were three goals in 74 appearances with the Libyan club Al Ahly Tripoli.

Gaddafi lasted for a very little time in Perugia since he was suspended for steroid use. He denied abusing steroids, alleging a bad back.

He signed with Udinense and made one appearance at a preseason friendly against AC Milan.

The last appearance of Gaddafi in Italian football was in Sampdoria, where he did not play at all before returning to Libya.

When Gaddafi returned to Libya, he was made (and there was no surprise) Captain of the Libyan National Football Team. 

While I was unable to obtain information on how the team fared under his regime, the FIFA Coca Cola World Ranking for February 2011 has Libya at 70th place with 451 points.

Financial

The English Rock Group "Pink Floyd" talked about money in one of the songs in their classical album "The Dark Side Of The Moon".

The Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LAFICO) purchased 6.4 million shares of Juventus in the year 2002.

The purchase at the time was the equivalent of owning 5.31 percent of the club.

The boss of the Libyan Football Association (during that time) talked about increasing ownership of Juventus to 20 percent.

Instead, the current ownership of Juventus by LAFICO is 7.5 percent, with the shares decreasing by 3.1 percent during the recent upheaval in the country.

Khaled Fareg Zentuti (who is the President of LAFICO) is a member of the Juventus board. The next link is a complicated one.

The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) managed to purchase 2.59 percent of Unicredit. Unicredit was the Italian bank that was involved in the attempted sale of AS Roma to a US Investment Group lead by Thomas Di Benedetto. 

The stories about what transpired should serve as a historical documentary to what transpires when politics and sports are mixed. The mixture is a recipe for disaster.