More than half of Arabian Business readers have hailed a deal that saw golfing superstar Tiger Woods net $55.4m for a halted real estate project in Dubai as a great piece of business.

Tiger Woods Dubai

Some 52 percent of 552 readers in an online poll said the former golfing No.1’s contract, which promised him a total of $98.8m – more than half up front – reflected his sharp business acumen.

Just 16% of respondents believed Woods should return the $55.4m he was paid for the now-suspended Tiger Woods Dubai development.

Around 13 percent said he should pay back the extra cash he received as part of his renegotiated contract – $29.2m – while 19 percent said he should just keep all the money.

Arabian Business revealed last week that Woods’ had been promised $98.8m in total to design and promote Tiger Woods Dubai – massively more than the $10m he was thought to have received, and more than the $92.2m he had earned in prize money up to 2008.

Dubai Properties Group (DPG), the company behind Tiger Woods Dubai, last month confirmed that work on the $1.1bn development had halted following the emirate’s real estate crash.

The $1.1bn Tiger Woods Dubai project was initially scheduled to open in September 2009. Original plans for the 55 million sq ft project included 287 luxury villas and mansions, a boutique hotel and a clubhouse.

Villas on the project were – at their peak – sold for between $12m and $23m.

“This decision was based on current market conditions that do not support high-end luxury real estate. These conditions will continue to be monitored and a decision will be made in the future when to restart the project,” the company said in a statement.

Both DPG and Woods’ agent declined to comment on the payments made to Woods.

When asked last week whether he had signed an amended contract, Tiger Woods told Arabian Business: “No, I’m not going to talk about that, sorry.”

The decline and fall of “brand Tiger Woods” is a story best told not by the supermarket tabloids, golf’s world rankings or this month’s relaunch’ of a career and an image so brutally damaged by personal scandal, but by a journey, along the Emirates Road to the south of Dubai and then left and down an unmarked road.

Drive for a mile over the speed bumps, past an abandoned security hut, until Tarmac becomes gravel and then another mile until the gravel becomes sand, and there it is: The Tiger Woods Dubai. The first golf course in world designed by the man many consider, or at least considered, the greatest ever to play the game.

Read the three-year-old press releases and gasp at the numbers. Fifty-five million square feet. Two hundred “residences” – £7m villas, £10m mansions and “palaces”. A boutique hotel, a spa and a Michelin-starred restaurant. And then the centrepiece: the Al Ruwaya Golf Club. Eleven thousand imported trees; 22m cubic meters of earth to be moved; and 3m square feet of water. An 18-hole masterpiece hewn from the sand. All hail the winner of “best golf development” at the 2008 Arabian Properties Awards. Estimated total cost on completion: $1.1bn.

Now gasp at the tumbleweed reality on the morning of 27 November 2010, the first anniversary of the car crash that led to the world’s richest and most famous athlete falling to earth. The Tiger Woods Dubai: a dust-bowl, an empty car park, an “Arabian palace” as real as a Hollywood film set.

Like so much else in post-boom Dubai, the palace is a facade, propped up by wooden beams. Behind it lies a collection of portable cabins that in the glory days of the economic boom served as a sales office. These days the salesmen have gone, to be replaced by a handful of cleaners and maintenance staff trying to keep alive what is left of the $1.1bn fantasy.

There is not much; a scale model of the proposed development in one of the rooms, some dusty furniture and a telephone long disconnected. What has happened to Tiger Woods Dubai? “No comment. I don’t know,” said a Dubai-based spokesman for IMG, the sports agency that represents Woods around the world, while repeated attempts to contact the Dubai Properties Group, the government-controlled company that now owns the development, are met with no response.

In the week before his infamous car crash, Woods came to Dubai to look over the work that had been done up until then. He has never been back but when – or if – he ever returns, he will find virtually nothing has changed. Six holes have been completed and the outline of 12 more are in place, all behind a fenced-off compound hidden away from public view. Ghostly fairways lined by 3,000 trees, with 8,000 more stored under canvas. Will the project ever be finished? “Who knows? It could be great if it ever gets finished, but we don’t know if it will ever get finished,” says one member of the staff. “They better make a decision soon because we are struggling to keep the desert at bay.”

The urgency is understandable. It takes one million gallons of water a month to keep the vegetation alive – an inconsequential financial indulgence in 2008 but an unsustainable loss in these straightened times. There are options. Either abandon Tiger Woods Dubai to nature, or turn it into an exclusive golf retreat for high-rollers brought in from the downtown palaces such as the £1,500-a-night Burj al Arab. “Like Shadow Creek [an exclusive golf course in Las Vegas owned by the legendary casino developer Steve Winn] but without the gambling,” says one source. A decision is expected before February, when Woods will arrive here to play in the Dubai Desert Classic. The smart money around town is on the return to nature. After all what use is a billionaires playground when there are no billionaires?

“Why Dubai?” said Tiger Woods when asked why he had chosen to build his first golf course design in the Emirates, thousands of miles from his home in Florida and a world away from the Old Course at St Andrews, the links lay‑out designed and built by nature he has always described as his golfing lodestar. ”Dubai is basically in the biggest, greatest and newest of everything.”

Maybe so, but we can assume that money played a hugely significant part in the decision. Neither Woods nor his people ever discuss the vulgar subject of money, but no one in the business of golf has ever confused this reticence with modesty. In the era of the global sporting superstar, Woods was bigger than anyone. He worked hard to attain that status, was proud of it and was well aware of its worth. How much was he paid to put his name and apply his expertise to the Tiger Woods Dubai?

A figure as high as $25m was bandied around when Woods came here to launch the project in the autumn of 2008. But as time passed and Dubai’s property-based economy collapsed, so the numbers have been rounded downwards. “Realistically, I have heard the fee was $10m, and not all of that was up front,” one leading sports agent said last week. “But the real big money was in the ‘back end’ of the deal; the royalties he would have received from the sales. That could have run into tens of millions.”

Such vast sums sound outrageous today but there was a time when Dubai gloried in the obscenity of wealth. It was willing to gamble millions to attract billions, and in that context the appropriation of the Tiger Woods brand seemed like a one-way bet. And for a short period of time it was, with the then project manager Abdulla al‑Gurg claiming in the autumn of 2008 that 35% of the development’s properties – some of them priced as high as £25m – had been sold. Gurg has since left, but one member of staff who has been around since the start confirms the early successes.

“The place was buzzing. You would come in here every morning and find the sales staff had put up yet another red triangle [signifying a sale] on the map. There were always potential buyers around the place, being taken out for site visits,” he says. The first signs of trouble came at the end of 2008, as economies around the world began to crash. Dubai’s was more heavily leveraged than most and as it result it crashed harder. Properties prices fell 30% in a matter of months, while the market for high-end developments such as the Tiger Woods Dubai simply vanished.

In March 2009, it was quietly announced the scheduled opening date for the real estate side of the development had been pushed back. “We are prioritising the golfing components – the course, the clubhouse and the academy,” Gurg said.

Three month’s later, guardian.co.uk revealed the golf course itself was being delayed until 2010, prompting Woods into an embarrassing public loss of face. “The delay is six months as of right now,” he said. “Obviously, the economy has turned over there and they’ve slowed down construction because of it. The economy needs to turn around. If it gets stimulated, we can pick up to the point where we might open earlier, but who knows? It’s out of my hands.”

Woods was right about that, but he had been forewarned. No one is immune to the tides of man, not even him.

If he did not learn the lesson back then, he must surely have learned it now, after a year in which his marriage has collapsed, his supremacy over his golfing rivals has crumbled and his business empire has suffered blow after blow.

Best estimates suggest the golfer has lost at least $35m a year in endorsements after being dropped by AT&T, Accenture and the drinks company Gatorade, while the absence of any new sponsorship deals suggests the taint of scandal still clings. Money is not everything, but it is surely something for a man with a billionaire’s tastes and an empire to finance.

In his heyday Woods succeeded in bending his sport and his world by sheer force of will and clearly he believes he can do so again. The brand will go on, but it must also be reinvented – with a much-trailed radio interview in the United States, a self-authored article in Newsweek and Twitter. “You guys are awesome. Thanks for all the love,” he famously tweeted from his BlackBerry.

The interview was ridiculed, the Newsweek piece dismissed and, 10 days and four tweets later, the experiment in personal interaction with the public seems stalled. Time to wheel out the man from IMG. “We live in a society of second chances,” declared Woods’s long-time agent Mark Steinberg in an interview this week.

Maybe we do, but in the Arabian desert it could be the billion-dollar dream of the Tiger Woods Dubai has had the only chance it will ever get.

Double bogey on the answers to the personal questions.

Eagle on the shameless plug for Nike, the company that makes money out of using his dead dad’s voice to sell golf gear.

His responses to the inquiries about his private life were based on two simple strategies.

The first: don’t mention Elin.

His wife may now be his newly ex-wife, according to reports circulating around St Andrews yesterday.

“I’m not going to go into that,” Woods said stonily.

Elin used to get plenty of name checks in the first days of the new Buddhist Tiger a couple of months ago during the US Masters. Elin mentions played well then, but not any more.

It looks like she didn’t buy into the changed-man routine, so the Tiger politburo turned her into a non-person.

The second: deflect anything remotely challenging by repeating the same rehearsed response over and over again.

“I’m trying to become a better player and a better person, yes,” Woods kept saying yesterday.

Except when he said it, he sounded like an extra from The Manchurian Candidate, brainwashed and monotonal.

To paraphrase the exchanges: will you stop swearing, spitting and throwing tantrums on the golf course? I’m trying to become a better player and a better person.

How much more work do you have to do to rebuild your public image? I’m trying to become a better player and a better person. And so on.

There was one deviation from the rule. He talked about his kids. “All that really matters is that I have two beautiful kids,” Woods said.

“And I’m trying to be the best dad I can possibly be and that’s the most important thing.”

When your wife’s divorcing you, your coach has sacked you and your caddy, who’s always been rather too fond of himself, is talking so scathingly about you it sounds like he’s analysing a 24-handicapper hacking his way round the local muni, press conferences are bound to be a little tense. So Woods sought solace in his favourite sponsor and mentioned casually that he was switching to a Nike putter specially for The Open.

When his other sponsors were running for cover in the wake of the revelations about his private life, Nike stayed loud and proud. That’s what they do.

The cynics said this was payback – reward for their loyalty.

Tiger said he had always struggled on slower greens, although slower greens didn’t seem to be too much of a problem when he was winning his first 14 Majors. Someone asked him whether changing his putter “must be like kicking a member of the family out or something”. Woods managed not to wince.

In fact, he warmed to his subject. “I’ve always putted well on faster greens,” he said. “This putter does come off faster with the new groove technology.”

That’s Tiger’s real problem in his life post Elin, post family man, post sponsors’ darling, post role model – no one takes him at face value any more.

Maybe he really is enthusiastic about his Nike putter. Maybe he really has always struggled on slower greens. It’s just that nobody buys anything he says.

He may once have been the best golfer in the world but most people, even within the world of golf – maybe especially within the sport – now also see him as the most cynical golfer in the world, too.

It’s mainly his own fault. He lost a lot of people when his first press conference at Augusta before the US Masters in April turned into an emotional plea to would-be sponsors to take him to their hearts.

The last thing left for him is that people still believe in his golf ability. On each of the last two occasions The Open has been staged at St Andrews, Woods has won handsomely. He goes into the tournament as clear favourite to make it three in a row.

But Woods has never gone this deep into a season without winning a tournament of some sort and if he does not win this weekend on one of his favourite courses, people will begin to wonder whether he can get back to where he was before.

What nobody asked yesterday was whether The Open will represent another step in his recovery or another stage in his decline.

That would have been a tough one, but then even the easy questions were difficult for Woods yesterday.

Can you tell us how the Tiger Woods Dubai development is progressing, someone asked him helpfully.

“Ok, right now our Dubai project is on slow-down,” Woods said. He did his best to make it sound like a good thing.

TIGER WOODS OPEN RECORD

1995 – St Andrews – T68 – winner John Daly

1996 – Lytham – T22* – Tom Lehman

1997 – Troon – T24 – Justin Leonard

1998 – Birkdale – 3 – Mark O’Meara

1999 – Carnoustie – T7 – Paul Lawrie

2000 – St Andrews – Winner (right)

2001 – Lytham – T25 – David Duval

2002 – Muirfield – T28 – Ernie Els

2003 – St George’s – T4- Ben Curtis

2004 – Troon – T9 – Todd Hamilton

2005 – St Andrews – Winner

2006 – Hoylake – Winner

2007 – Carnoustie – T12 – Padraig Harrington

2008 – Birkdale – DNP – Padraig Harrington

2009 – Turnberry – Missed cut – Stewart Cink *Leading amateur

The Tiger Woods Dubai golf course and luxury-home complex will be completed as planned after being pushed months behind schedule by the sheikhdom’s property slump, its developer said.

TOP HOLE: Developer says it has no plans to cut ties with Tiger Woods, despite news of the golfer's marital infidelities.

“We haven’t decided yet on a date for its completion or delivery to the market, but the project is ongoing,” Dubai Properties Group Chief Executive Officer Khalid Al Malik said in an interview. Work on the course, designed by Woods and originally due to be finished by September 2009, has gotten as far as the eighth hole, he said.

Plans for the 55 million-square-foot (5.1 million-square-metre) Tiger Woods Dubai include 287 luxury villas and mansions, a boutique hotel and a clubhouse. Designs for the villas are being completed before construction starts, Al Malik said.

Residential projects worth $15bn were either canceled or put on hold in Dubai last year as developers tried to restrict supply to stem price declines. Jones Lang LaSalle said on Jan. 25. Dubai went from being the best-performing property market of the 46 monitored by Knight Frank to the worst within a year after the global credit crisis hurt investment and speculators left the market.

The development is a partnership between Tiger Woods Design and Tatweer, which is now a part of Dubai Properties Group. Tiger Woods has a minority stake in the project, which he visits two or three times a year, the CEO said in the interview last week. Representatives from his Windermere, Florida-based design firm visit more frequently, Al Malik said.

Government-owned Dubai Properties has no plans to cut its ties to the golfer, the CEO said. Woods took an indefinite leave from competition after admitting to marital infidelity. AT&T Inc. and Accenture Plc ended their sponsorship deals with Woods, while Procter & Gamble Co. said it would phase him out of its Gillette TV and print ads.

Al Malik said he doesn’t believe the association with Woods and his personal life has hurt the project. “We haven’t experienced any change,” he said.

In November 2007, the developer said Woods planned to build a 16,500-square-foot mansion overlooking the golf course that would include a gym, theater, library and pool. Abdulla Al Gurg, who managed the project at the time, said villas and mansions were selling for $12m to $23m.

“Part of the project is sold and the other part will go to the market once it’s completed because we believe it’s better to do it then,” Al Malik said. “We are moving on with that plan and we are continuing the project without a doubt.”

Dubai Properties Group, which recently merged with Tatweer Dubai and Sama Dubai, holds the emirate’s biggest land bank. The developer has 5 billion-square-feet of land, 3 billion of which are for Dubailand, a $7.5bn attraction twice the size of Walt Disney World in Florida.

The three real-estate units of Dubai Holding were combined ahead of plans to merge with the United Arab Emirates’ biggest developer, Emaar Properties. Emaar said on Dec. 10 that it abandoned the merger because the transaction was no longer “economically viable.”

Commercial directed by emma, to promote Tiger Woods New Golf Course

Source:  www.youtube.com

AAP. Robert Allenby says his injured left forearm is healing nicely and he wants to get more competitive golf under his belt before the British Open in a fortnight.

Robert Allenby says his injured forearm is healing well and he wants to get back to playing golf.

Allenby, Australia’s top-ranked player, had an X-ray after the recent US Open, which revealed nothing more than inflamed tendons just above his wrist.

He still has the afflicted area bandaged, but sounded upbeat on Wednesday on the eve of the AT&T National, formerly hosted by Tiger Woods.

“I only hit balls two or three times last week so I thought I might as well come here and use it as practice,” he said.

“My whole game feels really good but it might be a bit rusty.

“I want to give myself the best opportunity going into the British, so I need to play, because I haven’t played much. I just want to play 72 holes.”

Allenby encountered something he had barely seen all year during his pro-am on the Aronimink course – thick rough.

“They took the scissors to it today but it’s still really thick,” he said, clearly delighted to be at a venue where inferior ball-strikers will be punished more severely than usual.

World No.14 Allenby is the third highest-ranked player at the tournament, behind Woods and Jim Furyk, because most of the other top players are either at the French Open or having the week off.

Woods is the defending champion but no longer the host of a tournament he founded, since his deal with the event sponsor was severed in the wake of revelations of his extra marital affairs late last year.

He will have to straighten out his notoriously wayward driving if he wants to contend this week.

“I don’t think his game is as finely tuned as it was,” Allenby said of Woods.

“I’m sure mentally there are some things on his mind but maybe the closure of divorce might have helped.”

There are 14 Australians in the field, including Jarrod Lyle, who cruelly missed out on playing the US Open when he was first alternate but nobody withdraw.

Lyle was also an alternate at this tournament, but had better luck this time.

Fellow Victorian Marc Leishman is also playing, trying to bounce back after a disappointing missed cut at the US Open.

“I haven’t seen rough this thick ever, which is good, because it rewards good play and punishes bad play,” Leishman said.

It’s easy to become hypnotized by the natural beauty of Pebble Beach – all those sweeping vistas, all those crashing waves, all that craggy coastline.

Michael Macor / The Chronicle Tiger Woods, at No. 13 at Pebble Beach, was not the only person to complain about the greens.

All those spotty, mottled, discolored greens?

There they were during the recent U.S. Open, on vivid and unflattering display. Tiger Woods lifted the matter into another realm when he called Pebble’s greens “awful” after his opening-round 74, and Phil Mickelson didn’t help when he waved his hand in disgust as one putt on No. 14 abruptly veered wide of the hole.

The greens were not great, clearly. But they were not as terrible as they appeared – poa annua greens along the coast always become bumpy in the afternoon, especially with heavy foot traffic, and USGA and Pebble Beach officials accepted some cosmetic ugliness as a trade-off for getting the greens as firm as possible.

Still, the USGA heard enough muttering to send out a six-paragraph e-mail to its members this week, defending the greens. That’s not standard fare after the Open, especially when it’s held on the most storied stage in the rotation.

“People have a visual image in their mind of what Pebble looks like,” said R.J. Harper, senior vice president of golf for the Pebble Beach Company. “When we dry up the greens and fairways, it doesn’t look like the painting people expect. I understand that, but it’s simply a result of taking the moisture out of the greens. …

“We didn’t have HD television for the Open in 2000. That highlights every little idiosyncrasy and blemish.”

No kidding. In watching a replay of this year’s third round, it was striking how unattractive the greens looked. Fair or not, fans are accustomed to watching marquee events unfold on lush, green landscapes – remember how weird, brown and baked-out Royal Liverpool seemed for the 2006 British Open?

Harper acknowledged receiving mixed reviews of the course and its greens for this year’s Open. Mike Davis, the USGA’s senior director of rules and competitions, got some notes from fans who thought it was “despicable” to see the greens so discolored.

That’s a bit harsh. One prime element of defense in setting up any course – and especially a short layout such as Pebble – is making the greens firm. That means putting less water on them, which means less pretty-on-TV greens. It’s a reasonable trade-off once per year.

Davis has some minor regrets about the Open – not watering the No. 17 green more, not putting rough all the way around the No. 14 green – but he’s generally happy with the way the course played. It was difficult and borderline torturous at times, but the U.S. Open is not supposed to resemble the Bob Hope Classic.

“It’s really a cosmetic issue, in my mind,” Davis said of Pebble’s splotchy greens. “… For us, it’s 100 percent about the playability of the course and getting it in championship condition.”

Bramlett wins: One week after missing the cut in his inaugural U.S. Open appearance, Joseph Bramlett joined good company by winning the 49th Northeast Amateur Invitational outside Providence, R.I.

Bramlett, who grew up in Saratoga and graduated from Stanford last month, shot four rounds in the 60s to win the tournament by two strokes. Past champions of the Northeast Amateur include Ben Crenshaw (1973), Hal Sutton (’80), David Duval (’92), Luke Donald (2000 and ’01), Anthony Kim (’04) and Dustin Johnson (’07).

Briefly: Rickie Fowler, a leading contender for PGA Tour Rookie of the Year honors, has committed to play in the Frys.com Open. The event, part of the tour’s Fall Series, will be played in Northern California for the first time in October, at CordeValle in San Martin. … Cristie Kerr, who became the first American player to reach No. 1 in the women’s world rankings by winning the LPGA Championship on Sunday, won’t have to wait long for another major: The U.S. Women’s Open begins one week from today.

The world’s No. 1-ranked player Tiger Woods looks to defend his title this week in year four of the PGA TOUR’s AT&T NATIONAL as the tournament moves to a new venue, Aronimink Golf Club outside Philadelphia. CBS Sports broadcasts third- and final-round coverage of the AT&T National from Aronimink in Newton Square, Pa., on Saturday, July 3 (3:00-6:00 PM, ET) and Sunday, July 4 (2:00-6:30 PM, ET), live on the CBS Television Network.

Tiger Woods, US Open 2010, Photo: AP

Jim Nantz, the 2009 Emmy Award Winner for “Outstanding Sports Personality – Play-by-Play” and 2009 National Sportscaster of the Year, serves as anchor of CBS Sports’ golf coverage. Sir Nick Faldo, winner of six major championships and more than 40 tournaments worldwide, serves as lead analyst. Ian Baker-Finch calls the action at the 17th hole and Gary McCord at the 16th hole. David Feherty and Peter Kostis serve as on-course reporters.

Woods has played in five in PGA TOUR events this season, with his two top-10 finishes coming at the Masters and the U.S. Open. Last year, he beat Anthony Kim and Hunter Mahan at Congressional Country Club, home of The AT&T National. The tournament will only be played at Aronimink this year and in 2011 as Congressional prepares to host the 2011 U.S. Open. Woods joins Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer as the only players to have hosted and competed in an official PGA TOUR event in the same week.

The AT&T National benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation and pay tribute to the men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces. In cooperation with the Pentagon’s Army ITT office, The Foundation will once again distribute free tickets to military personnel this week at the AT&T tournament.

Woods takes on an impressive field of the world’s top players including Mahan, Jim Furyk, Y.E. Yang, Rickie Fowler, Sean O’Hair, Robert Allenby, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Lucas Glover, Nick Watney, Scott Verplank, Aaron Baddeley, J.B. Holmes, Justin Leonard, Steve Marino, Davis Love III, Ryan Moore, Rocco Mediate, Ricky Barnes, Vijay Singh, Paul Goydos, Charley Hoffman, Brandt Snedeker, Boo Weekley and David Toms.

Is Tiger Woods ready to part ways with long-time caddie Steve Williams?

According to Tiger, the answer is a definite no.

Donald Miralle/Getty Images

Rumors have been swirling since the U.S. Open ended a week and half ago that Woods and Williams were at odds over a comment Tiger made after his final round Sunday at Pebble Beach.

Tiger was reported to have said, “We made three mental mistakes. The only thing it cost us was a chance to win the U.S. Open.”

“There’s no tension there, not at all,” Woods said at his Tuesday press conference. “You guys are reading way too much into it. I was asked what happened out there, and I made three mental mistakes—three mistakes I don’t normally make. Do Stevie and I make mistakes on the golf course? Of course we do. We’re not perfect. We made mistakes at the wrong time. It happens.

“Hopefully, that won’t happen this week and we can win an event.”

Tiger is at the  AT& T National, this year being played at Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia. Congressional, the normal host, is taking a couple years off from the hosting the tournament while preparing for the U.S. Open next June.

Woods is the defending champion of the event.

Although AT&T ended its corporate deal with Tiger, they are still supporting the Tiger Woods Foundation, and the net proceeds from this tournament still go toward the foundation.

“If you’re going to have one over the other, you choose it this way,” Woods said, referring to AT&T’s support of his foundation, but not him.

Tiger finished in a tie for fourth at the U.S. Open, and may be poised to win his first event of the year. Although the field is strong, several of the world’s top players are not playing this weekend.

Among those missing from the event include Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, and Ernie Els.

From the clips I saw, Woods and Williams seemed fine as Tiger played his practice round on Tuesday. If there was some tension between them, it certainly seems to have disappeared.

On one side is a luxury goods brand loved by celebrities and fashionistas across the globe; on the other, the great-granddaughter of the empire’s founder. Welcome to the battle of Gucci vs Gucci.

The Gucci fashion house is protective of its image

The fashion house is taking legal action against Elisabetta Gucci after she announced plans this month to launch a worldwide chain of hotels in her name. The first, an 87-room luxury boutique hotel in Dubai, is scheduled to open this year.

The fashion house, now French-owned, has filed a lawsuit against Elisabetta Gucci “seeking injunctive relief in order to protect its rights”.

“Following the news that appeared in the last few weeks in some international media titles and the alleged involvement of Gucci fashion house with a certain hotel project, Gucci wants to make clear that it has no relationship to Elisabetta Gucci Hotels and that it is not involved in any project whatsoever with Elisabetta Gucci Hotels,” said a statement yesterday from Gucci, which made €2.3bn (£1.9bn) in revenue last year.

“Earlier this week, Gucci filed a lawsuit in Florence, Italy, against Elisabetta Gucci and the parties involved seeking injunctive relief in order to protect its rights,” it continued.

Ms Gucci, who is not involved with the fashion house and is artistic director of an Italian interiors and accessories company, plans to open 40 hotels across the world over the next 15 years. According to her website, Elisabetta Gucci Hotels & Resorts will offer “outstanding luxury and true Italian lifestyle in hospitality”.

The Abu Dhabi developer Baitek International Real Estate is a partner in the development. No one involved in the project was available for comment yesterday.

However, Lorens Ziller, the managing director of Elisabetta Gucci Hotels, said of the Dubai development earlier this week that Ms Gucci was “doing her job”.

“She cannot cancel her name or her background,” he told Bloomberg. “If she has a famous name or a famous background, that’s not her fault and we are not trying to use it as much.”

The lawsuit is the latest battle the sensitive fashion house has embarked upon to protect its image. They include a successful trademark lawsuit against the Chinese shoemaker Senda in 2008. Gucci lost a High Court duel with a small Birmingham fashion shop last year when it argued the store’s use of the brand name Duccio could confuse customers.

Top luxury brands are eager to target Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, with branded hotels. Giorgio Armani opened his first luxury hotel in Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper, in April and personally designed some of its 160 rooms. The group plans more Armani-branded hotels in other cities, including Italy’s fashion capital, Milan. Palazzo Versace Dubai, a waterfront hotel decked out with Italian furnishings, is due to open next year. The first Palazzo Versace opened on Australia’s Gold Coast in 2000.