League Championship club Sheffield United was funded by a £3.8M loan from Osama bin Laden's family, a court heard this week. A High Court judge is currently analyzing a "battle for control of the club" between co-owners Kevin McCabe and Prince Abdullah Bin Mosaad Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who is a member of the Saudi royal family. On the fourth day of the hearing, a "sensational revelation" was read out in court, "seemingly linking" the newly-promoted EPL club to relatives of the former Al Qaeda leader. It relates to an investment opportunity within the club which became known as Project Delta -- a £3.8M loan that McCabe said "would never have to be repaid" (London TELEGRAPH, 5/16).
The court was shown an email exchange between McCabe and Sheffield United Dir Jeremy Tutton, in which Tutton said that he would hate to see headlines claiming the club "launders money for extremists." McCabe dismissed this exchange as "banter," though Gledhill claimed that this shows McCabe "knew the source of the money" (London INDEPENDENT, 5/16).
