80 December 2021 FourFourTwo
In fact, many old Perugians talk warmly
of their former colleague. “He gave us the
opportunities to do things that you can do
only in films: mega parties and suites with
heated pools...” remembers Fresi. “He used
to pay €25,000 every month for a villa and
then never stayed there, because he also
rented two whole levels of the Hotel Brufani
in the city centre.”
A chortling Di Chiara recalls Saadi buying
two near-identical Lamborghinis: “He kept
them parked in a lot in Perugia and hardly
ever used them.” Instead, the private plane
was far busier: “Many players accompanied
him and returned the same evening.”
Occasionally that largesse was used for
a more practical purpose: he flew the whole
squad over to Monte Carlo while promoting
Libya’s 2010 World Cup bid, and Di Chiara
tells of an expensive solution to explosive
gastric issues on the team bus. “He went
into the Excelsior Hotel with his bodyguard,
got a room, did what he had to do and then
paid,” says the ex-Italy wideman.
Saadi, it should be noted, benefited from
having an unconventional coach at Perugia.
Cosmi was renowned for his jaunty cap, his
goatee and, at more than one of the clubs
he managed, showing porn on the team
bus to matches. “He was especially good at
trying to manage him,” continues Di Chiara.
“It was a very delicate thing.”
But was Saadi any good? Future England
striker Jay Bothroyd, who joined Perugia from
Coventry in 2003, wasn’t exactly blown away.
“Oh, he was poor – not a good player at
all,” Bothroyd told FFT last year. “To be fair,
he was a billionaire, so you kind of admired
that he wanted to come and train every day.
“It was actually because of him that I met
my wife: he got me to Milan for a birthday
party, where I met her – I guess I owe him.”FROM GADDAFI TO THE ROY KEANE OF LIBYA
The debut could have gone better. During
that 15-minute cameo against Juventus,
Saadi sprinted down the left “and managed
to put a ball into the penalty area,” insists Di
Chiara, “where he found no one – probably
because his team-mates didn’t believe that
he’d make it all the way”. There was to be no
glorious assist for Saadi – but then, as a big
Juventus shareholder, that might have been
a bit awkward.
His maiden appearance had already been
delayed by a year. The reasons were myriad:
a) his links to the Old Lady; b) contract issues;
c) a back injury; and d) a failed drugs test –
for nandrolone, rather than party fun. Given
his consultancy team, either was likely.
“He would be speaking to Diego Maradona
on the phone about free-kicks, and he also
had [disgraced sprinter] Ben Johnson as his
fitness coach,” added Bothroyd. He, too, got
on with Johnson: “I was with him for drinks
a few times, hearing his stories about the
Olympics. Saadi just tried to maximise what
he could do in football.”
That debut proved to be Saadi’s Perugia
swansong. He joined Udinese in 2005 – new
coach: Cosmi – and played one more Serie ABy the year 2000, with the global terror
table now topped by Osama bin Laden, Libya
were attempting to rebuild bridges. And who
better to act as diplomatic envoys than Bryan
Robson’s Middlesbrough, Gazza and all? It
went predictably poorly: kit disappeared, as
did passports, and a promo documentary
captured midfielder Phil Stamp’s delight:
“It’s st. The place is st, the hotel is st,
the food is st. We want to go home.”
Not Paul Gascoigne, though, who actually
knew Saadi Gaddafi. Aged 20, Muammar’s
enthusiastic third son had trialled with Lazio,
where Gazza also met his (supposedly sober)
siblings. But what happens in Rome stays in...
“You was always on the cocktails!” blurted
the Geordie scamp at an official reception.
Oops, sorry.
Still, Saadi had a Teflon-like way of shaking
off such problems. While nothing concrete
materialised with Lazio, he captained Libya
and two Tripoli teams, Al Ahli and Al-Ittihad,
including in an April 2003 friendly at the
Camp Nou. Papa Muammar paid €300,000
for that privilege, so a more permanent gig
somewhere always felt inevitable.
The Gaddafis had purchased 6.4 million
Juventus shares a year earlier, but manager
Marcello Lippi baulked at the suggestion of
Saadi doing rondos with Buffon, Nedved &
Co. Italian Prime Minister – and Milan owner
- Silvio Berlusconi intervened, with one eye
on Libya’s oil, and so in the summer of 2003,
Saadi joined Perugia.
For the unfashionable Umbrians, there was
the odd perk. The Grifoni were owned by
Luciano Gaucci, famed for disowning South
Korea’s Ahn Jung-hwan after his two-year
loanee had knocked Italy out of the 2002
World Cup. The Saadi signing was “genius”,
according to ex-Perugia full-back and then
club director Alberto Di Chiara.
“Gaucci was controversial in some ways
but brilliant in others,” Di Chiara tells FFT. “By
signing Saadi Gaddafi, he aroused the whole
world’s interest in us.”
Al Jazeera started to cover Perugia every
day. So did American intelligence. One CIA
report called Saadi the “black sheep”, with his
partying, booze and sexual antics all issues
“of extreme contention with his father”. The
Colonel had been unusually eager to find
him a club... but then Saadi did tend to attract
controversy back home. In Libya he combined
playing with running the FA, a conflict of
interests that caused particular tension in the
city of Benghazi, an anti-Gaddafi stronghold.
It would be catastrophic.
In Italy, Saadi mucked in a great deal more
than one might imagine, but the presence of
his bodyguards didn’t encourage too much
dressing-room banter. Australian goalkeeper
Zeljko Kalac finally broke the tension during
pre-season in the Alps, asking Gaddafi why
he was even there; later, those bodyguards
asked Kalac to see Saadi.
“I thought it could be the end of my life –
I could be dead here,” Kalac told the BBC. But
instead, the pair had a frank chat. “He said it
was the first time anyone had spoken to him
so honestly and openly,” explained Kalac.
“From there, we became really good mates.”
SAADI
GADDAFI