Pini Zahavi

Pinhas "Pini" Zahavi (; born 1943 ) is an Israeli football agent.

Zahavi was involved in the change of ownership of Portsmouth and for his work as a football agent, especially the (at the time) record-breaking transfer of Rio Ferdinand.

Zahavi's offices are in Tel Aviv. His business partner is Walter Palombo Italian, Swiss-based, sports agent.

Biography Zahavi was born in Ness Ziona, Israel in 1955, to a family of Jewish background. He is the son of a shopkeeper who sold building materials to local tradesmen. He has two elder sisters and a brother.

Zahavi is a widower with two children. He lives in a seaside apartment in the north of Tel Aviv and rents a flat in Marble Arch, London.

In 1990, Zahavi negotiated the transfer of another Israeli player, forward Ronnie Rosenthal, from Standard Liège to Liverpool.

A side effect of the West Ham deal was that it brought Zahavi into contact with Rio Ferdinand. Zahavi handled the transfer that took Ferdinand from West Ham to Leeds United for £18 million in 2000, and then his £30 million transfer from Leeds to Manchester United in 2002. As part of the deal, Zahavi was himself paid £1.13 million.

Zahavi was a friend of the Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, whom he had first got to know in the late 1980s, and by the time of the Ferdinand transfer he was responsible for brokering almost every major Manchester United deal, including the sale of Jaap Stam to Lazio for £16.5 million and the purchase of Juan Sebastián Verón from the same club for £28.1 million in 2001. Juan Sebastián Verón had been signed for Lazio by another friend of Zahavi's, Sven-Göran Eriksson, whom he knew first as a young coach at Benfica.

"Tapping-up" controversies Ashley Cole In 2005, The Football Association (FA) recommended that Zahavi be investigated by the responsible bodies for his part in the "tapping-up" of the Arsenal left back Ashley Cole, who was approached by Chelsea in contravention of Premier League regulations.

The independent commission established by the Premier League to investigate the incident after an official complaint by Arsenal concluded that Zahavi and Cole's agent Jonathan Barnett had extended an invitation to Chelsea to which the club had responded.

Chelsea, Mourinho and Cole were all fined for their part in the affair, while Barnett was fined £100,000 and had his licence suspended by the FA for 18 months, later reduced to a 12-month ban. Neither the FA nor the Premier League had any jurisdiction over Zahavi but referred the matter to FIFA, whose investigation was, as of October 2009, ongoing. Zahavi maintained his innocence of any wrongdoing, claiming that "at that time I did not represent Chelsea or Ashley Cole".

Rio Ferdinand In April 2005, Zahavi denied that Chelsea had been engaged in an illegal approach to the Manchester United player Rio Ferdinand when it emerged that the defender had met Zahavi and Chelsea's chief executive Peter Kenyon at Carpaccio, a restaurant in Chelsea, London, meeting again at the Elysee Greek eatery near Tottenham Court Road hours later. Chelsea denied any approach had been made, although then-Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson accused former Manchester United executive Kenyon of treating his former club with "contempt". Zahavi denied that the meetings were an attempt to pressure Manchester United into improving their offered contract to Ferdinand.

Portsmouth Beginning of association and Yakubu transfer Zahavi became associated with Portsmouth under the ownership of Milan Mandarić. He worked on the signings of Eyal Berkovic and Yakubu from Maccabi Haifa, owned by Zahavi's school friend Ya'akov Shahar, in April 2003 and was involved in the recruitment of Collins Mbesuma in August 2005.

In July 2005, Zahavi agreed a fee of £3.64 million for his part in Yakubu's transfer from Portsmouth to Middlesbrough. The fee, agreed with Middlesbrough's chief executive Keith Lamb, was to be paid in ten installments over five years if Yakubu remained at the club. The amount was the largest agent fee disclosed in English football at that time and was regarded as being extraordinary.

As part of the deal, Zahavi made payments to Barry Silkman, the agent who is understood to have spotted Yakubu's potential when he was playing in Nigeria and to have been responsible for the $500,000 transfer that took the player to Maccabi Haifa in 1999. Earlier in his career, Zahavi had assisted with the sale of Beitar Jerusalem to Gaydamak's father, the Russian–Israeli businessman Arkady Gaydamak.

Other business interests With his friend and associate, the businessman Eli Azur, Zahavi co-owns a media company, Charlton, that holds the television rights in Israel for major sports, including those of the English Premier League and the top flight of Israel's domestic football.

Zahavi also holds a share of HAZ Racing Team, one of the top motorsport teams in Argentina (the "Z" on HAZ comes from his last name).