Alexandre Gaydamak - Biography

Alexandre "Sacha" Gaydamak (Александр Гайдамак, , born May 1976 in France) is a French businessman of Russian Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and also holds an Israeli passport. A member of the wealthy Gaydamak family, he is the son of Arcadi Gaydamak.

In January 2006 he announced that he was following his father into association football club ownership by becoming co-owner of English Premier League club Portsmouth F.C. with Milan Mandarić.

His father is the owner of Israeli side Beitar Jerusalem. In July 2006 Alexandre Gaydamak became the sole owner of Portsmouth, although Mandaric remained at the club as non-executive chairman until later that year. Gaydamak owns a Luxembourg based company, Belvia S.a.r.l. and a British Virgin Islands company, Devondale Investments, which owned Portsmouth F.C.

On 21 July 2009, Gaydamak agreed to sell Portsmouth F.C. to Sulaiman Al Fahim in principle, and therefore stepped down from the board. He remained the owner of the club until the details of the sale had been finalised on 8 June 2009.

Gaydamak has been alleged to have asset stripped Portsmouth F.C. prior to this sale and yet still retains a claim, said to be £32,000,000, against the club as a creditor despite the huge debts at the provincial club. Investigations into these allegations are ongoing. The current whereabouts of Gaydamak are unknown; several supporters' groups have called on Gaydamak to come forward and answer these allegations but no response has been received.

On the 22nd October 2010 Gaydamak's business acumen came into question after reports of him demanding a "ransom" payment from his former club Portsmouth for an apparent £2.5million. It seems that he was unsure that his unpaid debt would be repaid. The case was made more embarrassing after Portsmouth F.C had received confirmation several times from Gaydamak himself that the terms were agreed and that he was a secured creditor meaning that not only would be paid in full, but he would also be paid before many unsecured creditors who are set to only receive 20p to the pound. Because of this he puts the club, that he used to own, in jeopardy of going into liquidation causing many supporter groups of the club wanting a quick resolution.