Berezovsky associate eyes West Ham club-paper

MOSCOW, Sep 4 (Reuters) A business associate of exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky wants to buy the English Premiership club West Ham United, business daily Vedomosti reported today.

Berezovsky's long-time business partner Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili is planning to start negotiations to purchase the club, Vedomosti quoted two sources close to the businessman as saying.

Vedomosti said the deal could be worth 100 million pounds 190.4 million dollars.

Officials at the East London club were not available for immediate comment. Patarkatsishvili could also not be reached for comment.

If the deal materializes, Patarkatsishvili would be the second club owner on the London soccer scene from the former Soviet Union after Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich, who bought Chelsea in 2003.

Patarkatsishvili has recently sold a leading business daily Kommersant to Russian steel tycoon Alisher Usmanov in a deal estimated by the Russian media at between 0 million and 0 million.

Kommersant was long controlled by Berezovsky, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, from his exile in London. He sold it earlier this year to Patarkatsishvili.

Berezovsky was Russia's most prominent and controversial businessman in the mid and late 1990s and a Kremlin insider under Russia's first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin.

He fell out with Putin soon after the president took office and fled in 2000 to London where he lives under the protection of political asylum. Russia seeks his extradition on criminal charges.

REUTERS PM KN1427