Crystal Palace
Jordan and Briggs left Pocket Phone Shop in 2000 after selling the company to One2One for £73m. That year, Singapore financier Jerry Lim bought Crystal Palace Football Club, a club that had been hours from extinction, from the administrators, and immediately sold the club to Jordan, aged 32. Jordan immediately appointed himself chairman, making him the youngest chairman of a Football League club. Having been born "100 yards from the ground" Jordan had been a lifelong fan, and he noted "I have achieved exactly what I set out to do, and that is to be Chairman of Crystal Palace. I have been prepared to put my money into something I truly believe in, and my first job is to turn the fortunes of this club around." Jordan also vowed that the club would be promoted to the Premiership, within five years. However, despite owning the club, Jordan did not own the ground. That belonged to Ron Noades, who had been chairman until 1998. It was the sale of the club from Noades to Mark Goldberg that eventually led to the club going into administration, and therefore it was natural that Jordan appeared not to have much time for Noades.
During his time as Palace chairman, Jordan also helped to set up a USA Academy, which is known as Crystal Palace Baltimore, and has supported former Palace captain Geoff Thomas in his work to raise money for first Leukaemia Research and then his own charity, "The Geoff Thomas Foundation". Jordan appeared for a "Geoff Thomas Foundation Charity XI" in the first ever match at the new Wembley Stadium, against a team of celebrities, scoring the second goal in a 2-0 win after Mark Bright had opened the scoring.
Jordan caused a storm in July 2008 by announcing his plans to sell the club and move away from football altogether, stating he had "been disillusioned with football for a long time". This occurred after Palace had found centre-stage once again following a Football Association tribunal's decision on the John Bostock transfer to Tottenham Hotspur left Jordan to declare "It's a panel of halfwits". Palace were awarded only £700k, having valued Bostock at £5m.
No potential buyers came forward to make a bid for Palace, and the club have become embroiled in deep financial trouble. Rumours persist of personal financial difficulties as Jordan faced "cashflow" problems relating to wage payments at the club in November and December 2009. On 26 January 2010 Crystal Palace went into administration and Jordan's ownership came to an end.
Read more about this topic: Simon Jordan
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