A long battle for taking sole charge of the club has been played out in court and on Monday the judge ruled in favour of Prince Abdullah, a Saudi royal

This summer, as Sheffield United prepared for their first Premier League campaign in 12 years, the future of the club was being decided in the high court regarding who controls them. At the centre of the argument were the co-owners Kevin McCabe and Prince Abdullah bin Mossad Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a Saudi royal who bought half of the Blades in 2013 for £1, in exchange for £10m investment. On Monday the judge’s verdict arrived and he ruled in favour of Abdullah.

Two weeks of arguments were made on both sides, plenty of it extremely heated. Abdullah was accused of bribery, which he denied and the claim was dismissed as “fanciful” by the judge. Mr Justice Fancourt found overwhelmingly in favour of the prince, dismissing the claims brought by McCabe.

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Sources close to Abdullah say the falling-out began in 2017 with the Saudi feeling that McCabe had ignored his advice on a variety of matters. He feared that McCabe just wanted his money and that they were not equal partners. Abdullah brought in consultants to review club operations and see how things could be improved but McCabe was dismissive of the consultants’ advice. A planned expansion of the European scouting network was also scrapped against Abdullah’s wishes.

When the original deal was made between Abdullah and McCabe a clause was inserted to allow the former to buy the club for a further £5m, which he will now do following the judge’s verdict. As part of the arrangement Abdullah would be obliged to purchase Sheffield United’s properties, valued between £35 and £40m, including the stadium and training ground, once he owned 75% of the shares.

In February 2018 McCabe served notice on Abdullah’s company, UTB, for his Sheffield United Limited (SUL) to purchase Abdullah’s shares for £5m, in the apparent belief that the Saudi had insufficient funds to purchase the club’s properties. Abdullah had at this point invested £18m in the club. “Far from being ‘minted’, Prince Abdullah couldn’t even come up with a piffling £500,000 to pay staff wages,” McCabe’s counsel said in court to support this case.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sheffield United co-owner Prince Abdullah bin Mossad Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud will now look to buy the club. Photograph: Action Images

Abdullah, who runs a successful paper company, served a counter-notice with the aim of buying SUL’s shares in the club. At the same time he transferred 80% of his half of the club to a sister company, UTB 2018, following legal advice, to avoid triggering a Property Call Options to buy five properties from the club, at the point he reached 75% ownership of Sheffield United shares. In response SUL refused to sell its shares, arguing such a move invalidated the original deal. And ultimately that is how it ended up in court.

SUL claimed Abdullah, through his lawyer Yusuf Giansiracusa, conspired to avoid buying the properties, causing loss to SUL. McCabe’s side argued that “strong” and “highly charged” emails sent by Giansiracusa were part of a broader scheme to provoke McCabe to accept the sale without the properties. UTB said McCabe, a long-term business owner, would not be concerned by heated email exchanges and that SUL had been involved in discussions with an American over the sale of the club, which would require UTB to be pushed out.

There was a headline-grabbing use of the Bin Laden name during the court case when it was revealed Abdullah secured a £3m loan from a relative of Osama bin Laden to help fund the club. The family member is a legitimate businessman without close links to the former al-Qaeda leader but McCabe claimed he never knew the original source of the money.

SUL argued that Abdullah, the former owner of the Saudi club Al Hilal, was unfit to run Sheffield United and that the money was a bribe in relation to the prince’s work in the Saudi government but the judge ruled this not to be the case. An investment expert told the court that the loan could be traced to Saleh Mohammed Bin Laden. It was said that Bin Laden considered investing in United but decided against doing so following due diligence, leading to the money being repaid.

Paul Downes QC, representing SUL, asked the club’s chief executive, Stephen Bettis, whether Chris Wilder would quit as manager if Abdullah took full control, although the judge interrupted to say “speculation was not going to help” and was irrelevant.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sheffield United co-owner Kevin McCabe. Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images via Reuters

McCabe said he was “bitterly disappointed” by the ruling, which dismissed his claim for damages and breach of contract, and said in a statement that it is “simply heart breaking” to lose connection with the football club he has supported since the 1950s. McCabe is seriously considering an appeal to Mr Justice Fancourt’s decision to rule in the prince’s favour. In the meantime McCabe said he “sincerely hopes that he is proved wrong in relation to his deep misgivings about the suitability of the Prince Abdullah as an appropriate custodian of Sheffield United”.

Wilder and Abdullah have met to discuss funding and transfers and are said to have built a positive working relationship. At the start of pre-season Wilder signed a new three-year contract, earning a significant pay rise which was signed off by the prince. Wilder and his wife have visited the prince’s home to talk about plans for the future of the club.

Despite the off-field distractions, the team have made a reasonable start on the pitch, earning five points from their five league games, leaving them 15th in the table, aided by the club breaking their transfer record four times over the summer, a spree capped off with the £20m acquisition of the striker Oli McBurnie.

Abdullah said in a statement after the verdict being announced that his first priority was to secure the club’s top-flight status, aided by investment in the first team and academy, as well as facilities.