Harry Harkimo, chairman of the board of the Helsinki ice hockey team Jokerit, hopes to expand his sports empire into Sweden. Next on his list of partial acquisitions is the Stockholm hockey team AIK.

   

On Monday, the board of AIK decided that AIK Hockey would be formed into a company. Under the plan, the mother team would own 51% of the share capital and 49% would be on offer to investors.

   

According to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, one of the possible investors would be Harkimo.

   

"I am interested." said a somewhat cautious Harkimo. "There have been talks, but no agreements have been made. The discussions continue on Wednesday."

   

The key question is the price, and how big a piece of the company is available. It is clear that Harkimo is not looking only for a place to invest money: he also wants to participate in the decision making.

   

AIK is considered one of the icons of Swedish hockey. In recent years, the team has not been doing very well financially; its deficit is more than SKR 40 million. The situation was hardly helped by the fact that AIK has not reached the play-offs, and last season it placed ninth. According to Klas Gustafsson, the head of the hockey division of AIK, the only alternatives are forming a company, or phasing the team out.

   

The acquisition of bases in other European countries is familiar to Harkimo. The Newcastle River Kings represents Harkimo's business interests in the British Hockey League. Harkimo has also invested in a new arena that is going up in Hamburg, and there are reports that the Finnish sports mogul is looking for a German hockey team to be the arena's main star.

   

However, it also appears that Harkimo sees the growth potential of hockey as limited, and he has taken a greater interest in soccer, where the real money is seen to be.

   

While talk of the limits of hockey might be true on the fairly small Finnish market, Central Europe is another story. A European professional league might appear at any time, and Harkimo and his European base would be well suited for the challenge.