Bend it like Gaddafi

By PETER POPHAM

He wanted, they say, to buy Liverpool; he dreamed of playing for Manchester United. Neither of these hopes stood much chance of being realised.

But this week a tall, sleek young billionaire called Al-Saadi Gaddafi shook hands in the Grand Hotel in Rome with a football manager called Luciano Gaucci, and the Italian football club Perugia, which plays in Serie A (Italy's Premier League equivalent), and became a piece of history: he is the first son of a foreign head of state to sign for an Italian football team.

The manager with the Midas touch, known for his outrageous shirts, excessively young girlfriend (she was one of his daughter's classmates at school) and extraordinary, headline-making signings, had done it again.

Gaucci is a man with a proven genius for lifting obscure players and later selling them on to the country's richest clubs for stupendous sums, to howls of outrage from fans and to the delight of Perugia shareholders. But this time he has outdone himself.

For Gaddafi, the move is an extraordinary gamble, and he risks humiliation and ridicule if it fails. These are not emotions someone born into his position can know much about. He is the owner and director of a Libyan team, Al-Ittihad, for which he also plays; once when the team's Italian coach had the temerity to drop him, Al-Saadi had the man fired.

But at the press conference announcing his decision to join Perugia, Gaddafi was all humility and sweet reasonableness. "I just want to be treated the same as everyone else in a climate of healthy competition," he told journalists. "I would like to understand if I can adapt myself to Italian football and the environment of Perugia."

Perugia's coach - Serse Cosmi, another of Gaucci's legendary discoveries - was diplomatic. "I can't give my judgment on the player, as I have only seen him play once.But thanks to this meeting I now know that he is a very intelligent person with a humble and flexible approach to his role."

Gaucci brusquely turned aside questions about who paid whom and how much. "All those things are secondary. He has come here because of his passion. And we are pleased to have him. This agreement gives Perugia a place in history."

Having just turned 30, Gaddafi is a little long in the tooth to be embarking on a career in the Italian game. And he is the son of Muammar Gaddafi, the dictator of Libya since 1969, to the Americans a bogeyman on a par with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and a bizarre, gnomic autocrat up there in the weird league with Kim Jong-Il of North Korea.

So the signing of Al-Saadi by Perugia raises many interesting questions. Is this the story of a young man feverishly seeking an exit, however improbable, from his destiny? Does Gaucci really mean to play him, or does he just recognise a brilliant publicity stunt? (The deal originated, Gaucci revealed, in a phone call from Al-Saadi.)

Most intriguing of all: what is Gaddafi snr's stake in the agreement? Can it be a coincidence that his son has signed with the only Italian football manager who has claimed, on record, to be a close friend of President George Bush?

There are differences of opinion about Al-Saadi's gifts as a player (he is a midfielder), but no one quibbles about his commitment to football. He is transparently mad about the game, immensely ambitious for his national side's success, and he has done more than anyone to put Libyan football on the map.

It is Al-Saadi who is credited with persuading his father to lift the ban on the sport, since when it has become enormously popular in the oil-rich North African country. Matches between the top sides can draw crowds of 100,000.

One reason football has become so popular is because it offers Libyans a relatively safe outlet for any feelings of hostility they may have for the regime that has ruled them for 34 years - by coming to matches where Al-Saadi is playing and shouting themselves hoarse for the opposition. Once, a donkey wearing Al-Saadi's shirt number was thrust on to the pitch during a game, to wild applause.

But whatever the grumbling against his father's regime, no one disputes that Al-Saadi has been working overtime to turn Libya into the star of African football. This weekend he flies to Kinshasa to play for the Libyan national side against the Democratic Republic of Congo for a place in the finals of the African Cup. With oil money sloshing into the game, Libyan sides have recently begun to lure top stars from other African countries. In the past, these players have headed for Western Europe to make their international names.

Al-Saadi's dream is to host the 2010 World Cup finals. But if Al-Saadi wants the world to come to Libya, he is also hellbent, for whatever reason, on taking his own talent and his father's money to the world. Manchester United and Liverpool were destinations he once dreamed of, but the British animus towards the Gaddafi regime meant those teams were always going to be a long shot.

Instead, his roving eye settled on Italy, Libya's former colonial overlord, now formally apologetic for its misdeeds, a near neighbour across the Mediterranean - and possessing players of the world's most beautiful football.

Al-Saadi has been cruising Italian football for years now, probing its defences, seeking the opening that could lead to a glorious goal. His most striking initiative to date was taking advantage of the desperate financial crisis that has overtaken carmaker Fiat, which is strongly linked with the great Turin side Juventus, and buying a 7.5 per cent stake in the club. Juventus now play in shirts bearing the name of Tamoil, the Libyan state oil company.

But 7.5 per cent, even of a team as great as Juventus, is nothing like as interesting as outright ownership, and when the Serie A side Lazio, of Rome, came on the market recently, Al-Saadi was tempted to go back to Dad for an even bigger cheque to buy a majority share. But Lazio is saddled with enormous debts - the club has yet to pay Manchester United several million pounds it owes for Dutch defender Jaap Stam, bought in 2001 - and ultimately the Libyan footballer thought better of it.

Instead, by jumping into Perugia feet first, Al-Saadi is trying something very different. Training with the Perugia squad begins on July 1. Should Al-Saadi prove hopelessly inadequate, Perugia retains the option to let him go before September. But what is his purpose? And why did Daddy say yes? The answer may be in the links to President Bush.

- INDEPENDENT