Pini Zahavi

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Pinhas "Pini" Zahavi (Hebrew: פיני זהבי‎; born August 24, 1943 in Ness Ziona, Israel)^[1]^[2] is a football agent who has been involved in some of the most expensive (and controversial) transfer episodes of the last decade. Zahavi is often described as a "football transfer super agent" or a "transfer svengali". He is registered with FIFA from his offices in Tel Aviv.^[3]

His sports career began when he was a writer for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth; the contacts he made in that position helped him to establish himself, after making a career change, as a football agent.

Today he lives in Tel Aviv and Marble Arch, London.^[4]

1 Business deals
2 Controversy
3 Notes and references
4 External links

[edit] Business deals

He helped facilitate the takeover of two English Premier League clubs by fellow associates, Chelsea Football Club by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, and Portsmouth Football Club by French businessman Alexandre Gaydamak.

Transfers he has brokered include:

Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United, July 2002, £30m
Juan Sebastián Verón to Manchester United, July 2001, £28m
Yakubu Aiyegbeni to Middlesbrough, July 2005, £7.5m

The Yakubu deal is reported to have earned Zahavi a potential £3m fee, the largest ever disclosed in English football.^{[citation needed]}

Clients he represents include:

Zahavi is co-owner of Charlton, a media company which holds the TV rights to many sporting events in Israel.

He is also part of a syndicate of owners which include Sir Alex Ferguson and bookmaker Victor Chandler, who are responsible for the Peter Chapple-Hyam trained Fireside, last in the 2008 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket. [2]

[edit] Controversy

After a takeover of Chelsea, former owner Ken Bates described Zahavi as a 'dickhead'. Zahavi responded by saying:

This revolting character is not worthy of a response. If I was in his shoes I would wake up every morning praying to God and thanking him that Pini Zahavi saved him from bankruptcy and put £19million in his pocket. He is history as far as English football is concerned.

—Pini Zahavi

In 2005 the English Football Association recommended that Zahavi be investigated for his part in the Ashley Cole 'tapping-up' affair. He was also present when then-England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson met with Chelsea owner Abramovich; Eriksson later issued a statement denying his meeting was for business reasons.

Following the Lord Stevens 'bung enquiry', Zahavi was reported to be involved in "making illicit payments" on a deal involving Fabio Rochemback and fellow agent Barry Silkman.

"Agent Pinhas Zahavi has failed to co-operate fully with the inquiry . There was an initial failure to disclose his involvement in a number of transfers but, more seriously, he has failed to provide the inquiry with complete bank statements due to the confidential nature of them. There has also been a lack of responsiveness by Zahavi. There remains questions relating to his relationship with, and payments to, licensed agent Barry Silkman, and with Silkman's failure to initially disclose his involvement in all the transactions in which he has received fees."^[5]