Former Portsmouth owner Sulaiman Al Fahim has been sentenced to five years in a United Arab Emirates jail for stealing £5m from his wife to fund the purchase.

Al Fahim, who also fronted the Abu Dhabi United Group's deal to buy Manchester City in 2008, was found guilty of forgery, using forged documents and aiding and abetting, according to BBC Sport.

The report claims that Al Fahim and an accomplice were found to have stolen the money used to buy Pompey from Sacha Gaydamak, the club eventually being sold to Ali Al Faraj.

Police discovered that the sum had been transferred to a British law firm, at the request of Al Fahim, and later used for his takeover of Portsmouth.

Al Fahim's wife denied giving him authorisation to manage the account, and an account manager was also sentenced to five years in prison.

At the time of Al Fahim's ownership, Portsmouth were in the Premier League but were also struggling financially and, four years later, they had gone into administration twice, suffered three relegations and had seven different owners.

In 2013, Portsmouth were taken over by the Pompey Supporters Trust (PST), who sold the club to former Disney chief executive Michael Eisner in August 2017.