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May 16, 2010
New Jersey Nets' new billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov is about to come in from the cold
Daily News
By Nathaniel Vinton
This piece notes how the new owner of the Nets and savior of Bruce Ratner, oligarch Mikhail Prokhrov, is generating excitement for sports fans, but also raises questions as to how well the NBA vetted him.
Prokhorov is not the first non-American to take possession of a major professional sports franchise in the U.S. - Nintendo of America owns the Seattle Mariners, for instance. But it is still unprecedented for New York City, and not everyone is excited about the prospect. Democratic congressman Bill Pascrell of New Jersey has asked the Treasury Department to scrutinize Prokhorov's investment empire for ties to Zimbabwe's notorious dictator Robert Mugabe, whose regime is subject to strict U.S. sanctions.
"I really encourage foreign investment in the United States of America," says Rep. Pascrell, "but I believe we have an obligation and responsibility to very carefully investigate the people and companies involved, and I believe we have not done that in this particular case."
Pascrell admits he's disappointed to see the Nets leaving home state New Jersey (after spending the coming two seasons in Newark). He is outraged by what he calls the lack of transparency in the background check the NBA says it conducted this spring.
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In another economic climate, this background would not fly with the NBA Board of Governors, says Dave Zirin, the author of the forthcoming book "Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love."
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"There are numerous reports on the public record that Mikhail Prokhorov made a great deal of money in ways that might raise an eyebrow or two," says Zirin. "It's not a question of whether he was vetted, but of how much Stern was willing to overlook."
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NBA Commissioner David Stern continues to find a way to keep his vetting process opaque:
David Stern says that the firm the NBA hired to investigate Prokhorov's business background could find no reason why he shouldn't be an owner. He wouldn't name the firm because he worries that identifying it might compromise the firm's ability to conduct future investigations. Stern did say it was not a law firm, and that the league has used the group's services in the past.
"We retained a firm that has important investigative assets and contacts on a global basis," says Stern. "We made additional discrete inquiries of various agencies and departments that are not at liberty to talk to us on the record. We made a complete round of inquiries."
After raising the reader's suspicions, the article makes it awfully difficult to believe this quote from Russian NBA player Andrei Kirilenko:
"He's not just going to be good for the Russian community," says Kirilenko, who peruses the bookstores of the Russian enclave of Brighton Beach when he visits New York, "everyone in the area is going to like him."
Posted by steve at May 16, 2010 7:19 AM