The Portsmouth saga is over...or is it? Are they the new Manchester City? Will there be swathes of oil riches heading into Fratton Park? Perhaps. Though nobody knows if you ask The Independent's Nick Harris who has gone on the trail of Ali al-Faraj, the new owner, who has been variously described as a "Saudi property tycoon".

But Harris has not found out a great deal about the new owner, who bought Pompey for, well, nothing.

Yet during a day-long search yesterday from Hampshire to Riyadh via Redditch and many points in between, The Independent found it impossible to substantiate very much about him at all.

To say he likes to keep a low profile is the understatement of the season so far. His middle name could be Macavity.

The patrol of the internet and cuttings files continues to draw a blank.

The name "Ali al-Faraj" had never been mentioned in any English language publication in the world before being mentioned in association with Portsmouth in August this year. The Premier League has already cleared him as a fit and proper person to own a British club but declined yesterday to elaborate on what it knows about his business interests.

Faraj may well indeed be one of the most wealthy and influential business people in Saudi Arabia, but he is not on the Forbes Magazine list of Saudi billionaires. He would have been omitted if he were a Saudi royal, which remains a possibility, but none of the reports of his wealth or background have yet suggested he is.