In the chairman’s office deep in the belly of Bramall Lane’s main stand Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz al Saud is defending the manoeuvres that have brought him total ownership of a Premier League club worth £104m for a remarkably low price.

It is the final result of a furious battle between him and Sheffield United’s former long-term owner, the property magnate Kevin McCabe, who, in 2013, gave Abdullah, a member of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, 50% of his shares in return for £10m invested in the club.

Kevin McCabe refused right to appeal in Sheffield United ownership saga Read more

The subsequent fallout has been bitter but Abdullah, accompanied by his Riyadh-based lawyer, Yusuf Giansiracusa, is unapologetic about McCabe: “He tried to screw me, he got screwed,” he says.

Their joint ownership descended into years of clashes and a boardroom standoff before the outcome was decided by a high court judge in September. Last month McCabe was refused permission to appeal against the court’s judgment that compelled him to sell Abdullah his 50% of the club, for £5m.

It has been a devastating defeat for McCabe. A lifelong supporter of the club and a director since 1995, he had spent multimillions improving Bramall Lane and funding years of losses through its fall from the Premier League in 2007 to League One four years later. In 2013, to make buying into the club less expensive for any new investor he separated its ownership from the stadium, academy, hotel and other properties he had built and leased them to the club at a discounted rent.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kevin McCabe: a lifelong Sheffield United supporter and director since 1995, he had spent multimillions improving Bramall Lane and funding years of losses at the club. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/BPI/Shutterstock

The 138-page court judgment lays bare the turmoil, financial squeeze and irreparable falling‑out between the co-owners, even in May 2016 as they landed on the inspired managerial appointment of Chris Wilder, who has since driven his players from mid-table in League One to sixth in the Premier League.

Mr Justice Fancourt, the judge in the case, was severely critical of McCabe as a witness and of the forceful way he went about reasserting control at Bramall Lane after becoming disillusioned with Abdullah as a partner, having realised he was not so mega-wealthy, as the original intermediary for the investment had led McCabe to believe.

Both parties originally agreed to include a mechanism designed to end the joint shareholding should they no longer wish to work together. In December 2017, McCabe served this so-called “roulette notice” on Abdullah, which challenged the prince either to sell his half for a price McCabe set, £5m, or to buy McCabe out for the same price.

The difference between the two men’s positions – and the problem for Abdullah – was that the agreement required the prince, if he reached 75% ownership of the club by buying McCabe’s shares, to ensure also that the club bought from McCabe the stadium, academy and other properties, valued at £40m-£50m. McCabe, who knew the prince would find it difficult to fund the purchase of the shares and the properties, therefore believed Abdullah would decide to sell his shares.

Abdullah acknowledges it was difficult for him financially to contemplate the deal: “Remember, we were still in the Championship, so it’s not only that you have to pay the £40m, you have also to finance every year a deficit of between £10m and £15m, which will make it impossible for the team. If I put the money in real estate I have no money to improve the team.”

Despite being reluctant to buy the properties as well, he did not want to sell his stake for £5m because he had put millions more than that in: the initial £10m as well as further chunks, as McCabe also did, when the club desperately needed it.

Timeline Key events in the Sheffield United ownership battle Show Hide Kevin McCabe and Prince Abdullah fell out spectacularly over Sheffield United. Here is how it happened. Prince Abdullah initial investment McCabe gives Prince Abdullah 50% of club in return for £10m invested in it. Agreement says if PA reaches 75% of shares, then the club has to buy from KM the stadium, academy and other properties worth up to £50m. Sheffield United promoted to Championship Kevin McCabe serves notice McCabe serves notice to buy Prince Abdullah out for £5m, believing PA will not counter-offer to buy KM out Prince Abdullah's counter-notice Prince Abdullah serves counter-notice to McCabe and initiates plan to get around owning 75% or more of the shares by creating new company. Sheffield United promoted to the Premier League High court ruling High court judge finds that Prince Abdullah fundamentally breached agreement with McCabe but still rules in prince's favour, ordering KM to sell his 50% for £5m End game McCabe is told there are 'no good grounds' to appeal high court decision

“He wanted to get my shares for £5m; is that fair?” Abdullah asks. “Kevin thought both scenarios are good for him; he thought either he buys me out [for £5m] or I have to buy him out and buy the real estate … He wanted to use the agreement to screw me.”

McCabe, speaking at his property company’s Mayfair offices, denies that. The judgment records that he did hope Abdullah would have to sell at £5m due to “Prince Abdullah’s previous financial difficulties” and the challenge Abdullah would face to fund the club as the 100% shareholder as well as buying the properties.

Negotiations had been taking place between McCabe and an American investor, Alan Pace, to buy into the club once he had 100% – the judgment says McCabe was planning on a large profit but McCabe denies that and the judgment notes a proposed agreement for Pace to pay £7m for 85%. McCabe says if, however, Abdullah opted to buy, the £5m sale price applied to McCabe too and although Abdullah would have to ensure the club could buy the properties that did not constitute “screwing” him.

McCabe issued the notice on 29 December 2017, with completion due by 6 February 2018. Having not heard back by 24 January, McCabe’s solicitors asked Giansiracusa what Abdullah was intending to do. Giansiracusa replied: “I don’t have instructions from my client.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sheffield United, back in the Premier League, taking on Liverpool at Bramall Lane in September. Photograph: Daniel Chesterton/Offside via Getty Images

The judge said that was “a misrepresentation” because Abdullah had already decided he was going to try to buy out McCabe. Although the judge said Giansiracusa did not have “a concerted plan to deceive [McCabe]”, they had been working on a “scheme” to avoid Abdullah owning 75% of the shares and having to buy the properties too. Abdullah’s “counternotice” was served the following day.

Giansiracusa’s plan was to diminish the stake held by Abdullah’s company so that, when he bought McCabe’s 50%, it would not take Abdullah up to the 75% threshold that required the club to buy the properties.

The scheme involved forming a new company and having Abdullah’s company, UTB, transfer to it 80% of its Sheffield United shares. Giansiracusa signed an agreement to buy, also then, 60% of the shares Abdullah would buy from McCabe.

When Abdullah served the counternotice to buy out McCabe, but without having the club buy the properties too, McCabe refused to go through with the sale, arguing that Abdullah was in fundamental breach of their agreement. It was Abdullah who then sued, arguing that McCabe should be forced to sell his 50% for the £5m set price and that he did not have to buy the properties as well.

The judge – while finding Abdullah fundamentally breached his agreement with McCabe by seeking to avoid buying the stadium, academy and other properties as well – still ruled in the prince’s favour.

Fancourt rejected areas of McCabe’s case in which he had claimed that Abdullah had engineered, in legal terms, a conspiracy, and the judge criticised McCabe’s side for making serious allegations of wrongdoing and giving a public airing to the fact that £3m had been loaned by the family of Osama bin Laden – who run a respected and very substantial Saudi construction company.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz al Saud: the new owner of Sheffield United. Photograph: Chris Brunskill/Getty Images

However, the judge did find Abdullah’s refusal to have the club buy the properties was a fundamental “repudiatory” breach of the shareholders’ agreement and that the transfer of shares did not enable him to avoid doing so.

But with reasoning McCabe says left him gobsmacked, the judge ruled that even though the agreement was broken McCabe was still required to sell for £5m because, when Abdullah served his “counternotice” to the “roulette clause”, it immediately created a stand-alone binding contract for the sale of the shares.

While the owners were locked in this fuming battle, Wilder was doing his wondrous work and Sheffield United won promotion to the Premier League. The £100m-plus TV and other windfalls meant the club’s value instantly ballooned to £104m and McCabe’s stake was now worth £52m. On promotion Abdullah did then offer for the club to buy the properties – the judge noted the club can now do this from its own revenues rather than Abdullah having to fund it, although the prince says he will ensure the club is not burdened.

Though McCabe is still on course to receive what he would have been paid had Abdullah not sought two years ago to avoid buying the properties, he is bewildered: “They are the ones who breached the contract, yet they’ve won and we have to sell shares worth £52m for £5m.”

Abdullah has become the 100% owner of a flourishing Premier League club soon to be reunited with its stadium and able to spend £22m signing the Norwegian midfielder, Sander Berge. He argues he did nothing wrong, pointing out he won the case.

Asked if he feels lucky how it has all turned out, he said: “I have had bad luck in some businesses in the past, I had some good luck. I think in this one I was blessed because I believe I had good heart, I didn’t want to cheat my partner, I always treated him with respect, I always talk about him very well; I didn’t have any bad intentions.

“When he put us in a corner, should I sell him my shares for cheap? No, I will not do that. He forced us to do what we did. And if anybody has to feel sorry, he should feel sorry.”