I don't find the old "gift for his son" too difficult to believe. Att loves football and maybe wanted to own a Premier League club. A lot of how the club is ran reminds me of how I wanted the club to be when I was young; buy the big name players based on their hype, keep the good ones and never sell, money and management is meaningless, all that matters is having the best players. It's all very naiive, but I know I wouldn't want to pour all this money down the bottomless well only to crush my son's dreams.