You win some and you lose some.
Wherever he is right now, deposed Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s errant son, Maxim, must be celebrating his part-owned football team’s rise to the highest tier of English sports.
Tiny Blackpool’s unlikely rise to the Premier League is being described as a fairy tale story, though I presume they don’t mean this one, about the evil and greedy king felled by a swarm of angry mosquitoes.
The club’s website is unfortunately not very revealing about the shareholder structure, but we know about the Blackpool link from a Kyrgyz state television report about Maxim Bakiyev’s appointment in October to the widely reviled Central Agency for Development, Investments and Innovations.
Maxim Bakiyev’s interest in football investment appears to have been aroused by his business partner and joint owner of Latvia-based holding company Maval Aktivi, Valery Belokon.
It is Belokon’s generous investment into Blackpool that is being largely credited with transforming this minnow into a team that will next season play alongside some of the world’s greatest clubs.
And how much of that money came from Maxim Bakiyev, one wonders? Perhaps more importantly, what portion of the reported $130 million windfall from broadcasting rights will Kyrgyzstan’s least favorite son stand to earn?
Other information not readily available is the exact size of Maxim Bakiyev’s share in Blackpool. According to the most recent clues, Belokon’s share amounted to 20 percent, which could put his Kyrgyz partner’s interest as high as 10 percent.
Maxim Bakiyev is not Blackpool’s director, which is just as well, since there are some theoretical restrictions on what kind of people are allowed to take up that position in English football. Not that those rules stopped the toppled leader of Thailand taking over Manchester City back in the day.
One may ask what use is all this to Maxim Bakiyev if he is on the run. But is he?
Mysteriously, the profile advertising his wanted status on the Interpol website has disappeared.
Meanwhile, Latvian authorities insist that they have searched high and low, but that they simply cannot trace the rapscallion.
On top of his visa to Latvia -- a member of the European Schengen zone that allows largely unimpeded travel across much of the continent -- Maxim has also visited Britain (not a Schengen member) in the past.
The game that earned Blackpool promotion was played at the Wembley Stadium in northern London on May 22, so perhaps people round those parts should be keeping their eyes peeled.
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