THANK F**K FOR THAT

Keith Harris, former FL chairman linked with a takeover for United last week explains where the rumours came from in the Observer:

Keith Harris is pleased with himself, and with good reason. He recently turned 50, celebrating in style with a glittering bash at Langan's Brasserie; last week, he signed off a £7 million deal that puts him in charge of his own mini-investment bank; and the week before, he helped pull off the football deal of the millennium - so far - when he advised on the sale of Chelsea football club to Roman Abramovich, the Russian multi-billionaire.

And with those three events, you probably have Harris in a nutshell: a shrewd financier with a second-to-none record as a serial deal-doer; a fun-loving chap who likes to have a good time; and a football nut who travels the world to watch Manchester United.

Actually, that is probably the inverse order for his lifestyle priorities. You get the feeling with Harris that the high finance and City wheeler-dealing exist to fund the fun part, which in turn revolves around football and United.

He has always been able to mix business with pleasure, and turn pleasure - mainly in the shape of football - into business. If he gets paid the standard City rate, the Russian deal will probably bring in around £1m for his firm, not a bad start for the new Seymour Pierce.

Harris enjoys good relations with Jon Moulton's venture capital firm Alchemy, which helps explain a recent news story, to the effect that Harris was seeking financial help putting together a bid for Manchester United. The story was that he had approached Alchemy, and had failed to get its agreement to provide the cash for a £400m-plus bid, but Harris insists the story was inaccurate.

'If you're looking at buying a football club, as we were with Chelsea, of course you look at United. It is the financial model for the whole sector. But it's a long way from that to bidding for it, much less owning it,' he explains. In any case, Alchemy is not as interested corporately in football than Harris.

'I've had no conversations about raising cash for Manchester United with Alchemy, nor anybody else. The rumour mill puts these things about,' he adds.

Roman Abramovich, the Russian who took over Chelsea in a £150m deal, was certainly acquisition hungry. Harris said he looked at Manchester United, Arsenal, and Tottenham before settling on Chelsea, which Harris knew well, having been a friend of the club's late director Matthew Harding and then a business associate of Ken Bates, Chelsea's combative chairman.

'The Russians did their research for a long time, and decided Chelsea met nearly all their requirements. There were risks with the other three. Citibank knew Abramovich from deals in Russia, so I had no problem with him,' he says, adding 'I hope there are lots more Russians out there like him, and that they have my number.'

So why didn’t the Russian bid for United?

“If you think of the sums of money involved, United are the most successful financially. They would have cost £650m to £700m. That’s a huge chunk of change. He paid £60m for the shares outstanding at Chelsea. But buying the company meant assuming responsibility for the debts and that was another £80m. So he got Chelsea for £140million.

“As for United, what can you do with them, how can you improve them? At Arsenal, you would have to spend to buy and build a stadium. You have all that problem — and it would be expensive.

“Spurs have spent on the ground but is it big enough and in the right place? And how much would you have to spend on the team?”