Mohamed Al-Fayed dead aged 94 - Mark Dolan Tonight
Mohamed Al-Fayed dead aged 94 - Mark Dolan Tonight
Transcript
00:00 mentioned this in the bulletin earlier, Mike Parry, Mohamed Al-Fayed
00:04 has passed away at the age of ninety-four.
00:08 A significant figure in business, former owner of Fulham FC, but perhaps most
00:13 known really as the father of Dodi Fayed, killed in a car crash in Paris
00:17 with Diana. Now you're very close to this story.
00:20 Well I broke the stories of the world seventeen minutes before the official
00:24 announcement came out of the uh... Alize Palace and it was the most nervous
00:27 seventeen minutes of my life. Because it was a gamble wasn't it really? It wasn't a gamble, I had a
00:31 correspondent with the foreign secretary Robin Cook in Manila, okay, and he had
00:36 been informed even before the Prime Minister because it happened on foreign
00:39 territory and he was the foreign secretary so he was the first member of
00:42 the UK government to be informed that Diana had in fact died and luckily I had
00:48 a man there and he actually went up to Robin Cook and said, has Diana died?
00:55 All the signs coming out of Paris that he said I'm afraid have to tell you she
00:59 has and so he came back to me. You can only rely on the reputation, the strength
01:06 of your correspondence. I had to either say we've got to go with it because the
01:10 world needs to know this has happened or I could have sat on it. I believed in the
01:15 man who told me, Charlie Miller, the defence and diplomatic correspondent, we
01:19 went with it and can you imagine that news when Mohamed Al-Fayed who had huge
01:26 ambitions to become father-in-law to Diana, Princess of Wales, suddenly
01:31 realised not only has his son gone but the woman who he hoped would be his
01:35 daughter-in-law had gone as well. It must have been enormous. Correct and he
01:39 speculated, Emma, about the circumstances of that crash and he implied and alleged
01:44 at various intervals that this was planned. Yeah he did and was you know
01:50 vilified by many many in the British establishment for that. Sort of end of an
01:55 era isn't it? I mean just hearing Mike talk about that time and thinking back
01:58 to Diana's death and all of that it brings it all back quite vividly
02:03 and also listening to you guys talking about you know his acquisition of
02:06 Harrods and then Fulham Football Club and his real aspirations to be a figure
02:11 in the British establishment. And could never get a passport. Why was he refused a passport by Jack
02:17 Straw at the time? Do we know? Well because they always feared that in the
02:23 background somewhere other information would come out because nobody could ever
02:27 discover where Mohamed Al-Fayed got his original money from to buy all these
02:32 jewels like Harrods you know like Fulham Football Club. Nobody, nobody knew where
02:38 the source of his money and he was an immensely rich man. Never mind Harrods.
02:43 I think he had something like 30 million pounds worth of apartment in
02:47 Park Lane in the days when they only cost a million pounds each you know what I mean?
02:52 David. Well not only did he have that he also bought and renovated the house that
02:59 the Duke and Duchess of Windsor lived in in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. Yeah.
03:01 And has turned it into a museum which is supposed to be opening soon. He owned the
03:06 Ritz in Paris. Yes. He bought Terminal and Asser the Prince of Wales a shirt maker
03:10 in order to get himself that bit closer and can we just say it was not Al-Fayed
03:14 that was a total fraud on his part. It was Mohamed Fayed he decided to add the
03:17 Al to make himself sound grander. What's wrong with that? Well you know. It's fraud.
03:21 I mean he was an extraordinary man but I think also an extraordinarily bitter
03:25 man. The years and years and years when he alleged as you said that there was
03:30 the royal family playing a part in the death of the Prince Philip killed his son.
03:35 Well yes he said it was a conspiracy between the late Duke of Edinburgh and
03:38 the Security Service which is just risible. Yeah. And he was a clearly if you
03:42 lose your son and heir you will be a deeply unhappy man but I think it passed
03:46 over from the realms of the normal grief and unhappiness to a serious bit of revenge.
03:51 He became deranged. Yes exactly. He became deranged about it. He reckoned the Duke of
03:54 Edinburgh's plan was to make sure that nobody except somebody with pure white
03:59 skin would ever become a member of the royal family. Yeah. And therefore his son
04:03 was threatening the lineage of the royal family. He was convinced of it. Yeah so I
04:06 worked for him because he part of his plan to become a respectable figure of
04:11 the establishment was to be the owner of a football club and that
04:15 was Fulham and to be a media proprietor so he he set up 963 Liberty a
04:21 medium-wave radio station based in London. Actually run by Mike
04:25 Hollingsworth formerly of TVAM. A very very talented TV producer and Al Fayed
04:30 was very focused about what Mr. Fayed very focused about what he wanted a
04:33 clear vision. Pretty ruthless as well. Stories were legion at Harrods about how
04:38 people would find out if they'd been fired and very often it was the fact
04:42 that their phone wouldn't work in the office and they'd go off to HR and say
04:46 why my phone doesn't work I can't get any calls through and they go oh yeah we
04:49 we need to talk to you about that you're being let go. There is another story in
04:53 which he went walkabout in Harrods very regularly he was the chairman and he was
04:57 like the Emperor of that place and he'd go he'd go around to various departments
05:01 making sure everyone was on their game and in the menswear department he caught
05:05 a young a young a young retail professional swinging the lead not being
05:11 very busy so he said young man go and do something be useful you know folds and
05:15 jumpers don't just stand there so the the person goes here apologies mr.
05:19 chairman of course and he gets busy right no problem so then Al Fayed walks
05:23 off but then he does a little swing round that goes back to the menswear
05:26 department unexpectedly and the young worker is again being lazy and that was
05:30 the last we saw of him. I went to Fulham his football club one night
05:34 when Everton were playing there my club okay and the club had just been sold he'd
05:39 just sold the club he'd got out of it and I saw all these arc lights as I was
05:44 leaving the stadium quite late on because I'd been in the boardroom having
05:47 plenty of this after the game and you know what it was it was a crane had been
05:51 moved in to remove the Michael Jackson statue which he had erected at Fulham
05:56 football because he was close to Michael Jackson very close to Michael
05:59 let's have a look at what Fulham football club have had to say everyone
06:02 at Fulham was incredibly saddened to learn of the death of our former owner
06:05 and chairman Mohammed Al Fayed we owe Mohammed a debt of gratitude for what he
06:09 did for our club and our thoughts are now with his family and friends at this
06:13 somber time was his input in Fulham was his purchase of Fulham significant for
06:19 Fulham's history it was very significant but of course when he first bought it
06:24 and think of the site of Fulham football club right on the banks of the River
06:27 Thames prime you know West London territory everybody was convinced that
06:33 he'd only bought it to knock it down and build multi multi multi-million pound
06:38 flats on it and yet after he bought it and he suddenly found that being the
06:43 chairman of a Premier League football club actually makes you quite important
06:48 and you mix with the great and the good and Bobby Charlton where is Bobby
06:54 Charlton you know and all this kind of stuff he suddenly decided quite like
06:57 football so he did the stadium up and kind of rebuilt it Michael Cole of
07:01 course our old friend worked for him for many years didn't he as a spokesman as
07:05 his spokesman information specialist and in fact I went to Fulham with Michael
07:10 Cole and was in the directors box with mr. Al fired one of his mr. Al fired
07:18 sons was disabled or is disabled right you know what I mean right and he was so
07:23 caring about this boy to make sure that everybody made sure the lad you know had
07:29 his lunch properly and every I remember that distinctly and he was he was a
07:32 gigantic presence there you know when you were his guest you were like royalty
07:37 as well you know what I mean he was I had a lot of time for him