Who Is Joseph Cala?

Last updated : 11 January 2012 By Jim Bonner

The latest name to be linked with a takeover of Portsmouth Football Club is that of Joseph Cala, an entrepreneur based in Italy and the USA.

The News reported today that Cala was rumoured to be the frontman for a consortium based in Abu Dhabi, but News journo Neil Allen has been in contact with him since and it seems that Joseph intends to be the sole owner as he has no backing from foreign investors.

But who is Joseph Cala?

Reliable information about the man is scarce, but he seems to be a slightly deluded daydreamer who has ambitions of creating an undersea resort complete with the biggest casino and spa in the world.

He has past history of owning a football club. All 11 days of it. Apparently, his time at Salerno Calcio (now playing in Serie D) was cut extremely short due to a "non-compliance" arrangement, with Cala failing to pay the bills despite promising a so-called "40 million euro investment" and an ambition for Salerno to become a Serie A club once again.

Doing a quick google search of his name also brought up this interesting page relating to a conviction for attempting to defraud for one Joseph Cala back in 1972. Perhaps this is a different man to the one that Andrew Andronikou is supposedly talking to about taking over our club, perhaps not.

Early impressions of Pompey's possible latest owner are that he seems to be Sulaiman Al-Fahim (pipe dreamer), Ali Al-Faraj (defaulting on payments) and Vladimir Antonov (alleged criminal) all rolled into one!

Still, it is early days yet and the more investigative journalists/Pompey fans may well dig up some more dirt on Cala, or at least find some information to give us a crumb of hope because at the moment, this chancer sounds even worse than the previous owners!