Pini Zahavi

[4] Zahavi, who travelled to England regularly to watch football, recommended Cohen to Liverpool when he saw Peter Robinson, the then secretary of the club, at Heathrow airport during a flight delay caused by fog.[1] In 1998, Zahavi had been introduced to Abramovich in Moscow by a mutual friend and so was able to provide an introduction when he was approached by Trevor Birch, the chief executive of the heavily indebted Chelsea, who were on the verge of being unable to pay their players' wages.[1][10][11] In 2005, The Football Association (FA) recommended that Zahavi be investigated by the responsible bodies for his part in the "tapping-up" of the Arsenal left back Ashley Cole, who was approached by Chelsea in contravention of Premier League regulations.[12] The independent commission established by the Premier League to investigate the incident after an official complaint by Arsenal concluded that Zahavi and Cole's agent Jonathan Barnett had extended an invitation to Chelsea to which the club had responded.[12] Zahavi and Barnett were then present at the Royal Park Hotel, London, on 27 January 2005 when Cole met the Chelsea manager, José Mourinho, and club's chief executive, Peter Kenyon.He worked on the signings of Eyal Berkovic and Yakubu from Maccabi Haifa, owned by Zahavi's school friend Ya'akov Shahar, in April 2003 and was involved in the recruitment of Collins Mbesuma in August 2005.The fee, agreed with Middlesbrough's chief executive Keith Lamb, was to be paid in ten installments over five years if Yakubu remained at the club.[21] As part of the deal, Zahavi made payments to Barry Silkman, the agent who is understood to have spotted Yakubu's potential when he was playing in Nigeria and to have been responsible for the $500,000 transfer that took the player to Maccabi Haifa in 1999.[7] The decision of the company to broadcast the 2006 FIFA World Cup through a pay-per-view offering proved very unpopular in Israel, leading to a boycott of the service and compromising Zahavi's reputation in the country.
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