RedZoneAction.org Blog
2021-05-02 20:23

Yesterday the accounts for the second season of the Deventer Devils were published. Since no investment was made in the squad, the numbers look very good for the Devils and indeed for the owner Ronald Vennegoor. Over the first two seasons, the Devils have made a very healthy profit of 174 million.

However having looked over the numbers it seems the profit could have been 224 million. The reason that it was not that higher number is that there was a curious and very large single transaction on the very last day of the season: a 50 million investment in a Middle Eastern media ccompany called Al Amunis Broadcasting Corperation.

Now it is entirely unclear why a European based sports team would make such a big investment in a market where american football is non-existent in the sports media landscape. However investigative financial journalists have come up with a potential hint: Al Amunis is a new company and the words themselves, although perhaps sounding middle eastern to western ear, doesn't actually mean anything in Arabic. However if you start moving the letters around, you can get to a rather familiar name in the the middle eastern business world: Sulaiman. The last name of the incredibly rich dad of one of the players of the Deventer Devils (LB Suleiman Sulaiman).

The club nor Sulaiman Enterprise have refused to comment so far on this, although alledgedly the press officer for Sulaiman Enterprises was overheard mumbling that "those journos are too bloody smart for their own good" while disconnecting the call.

There have been rumours of a rift in the back office last season and of course Sulaiman Enterprises did pay 7 million for the Deventer Devils Youth Academy, but how that would link to a media investment in the middle east is not clear at all.

We will keep you updated as this story develops.

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Tags: Inside Deventer Devils

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