Chinese football club owners

[Yarmbaggie]

Interesting to hear all the turmoil going on over at Inter Milan between Manager Conte and the Chinese owners.

It appears the owners are the same people who previously owned Jiangsu Suning. Who are they?

For those who don’t know Jiangsu Suning won the Chinese Premier league last season for the first time. Just before the start of the 2021 season the Chinese owners decided to CLOSE DOWN totally all the footballing sides of the club immediately from the first team to the ladies team and the club was folded up.

Inter fans are rightly panicking because the owners it seems have told Conte to find £70 million in player sales as well as a big reduction in his salary despite finishing second in Serie A and qualifying for the Champions league. Will be very interesting to see how this plays out but can’t see Conte still being their by the weekend.

Very ominous for all clubs, including ourselves, with Chinese owners. Why was there not much more press coverage on this and concerns raised about how Chinese owners can act when all this blew up earlier this year? Potentially very concerning.

[baggieal]

Interesting to hear all the turmoil going on over at Inter Milan between Manager Conte and the Chinese owners.

It appears the owners are the same people who previously owned Jiangsu Suning. Who are they?

For those who don’t know Jiangsu Suning won the Chinese Premier league last season for the first time. Just before the start of the 2021 season the Chinese owners decided to CLOSE DOWN totally all the footballing sides of the club immediately from the first team to the ladies team and the club was folded up.

Inter fans are rightly panicking because the owners it seems have told Conte to find £70 million in player sales as well as a big reduction in his salary despite finishing second in Serie A and qualifying for the Champions league. Will be very interesting to see how this plays out but can’t see Conte still being their by the weekend.

Very ominous for all clubs, including ourselves, with Chinese owners. Why was there not much more press coverage on this and concerns raised about how Chinese owners can act when all this blew up earlier this year? Potentially very concerning.

Football Clubs should be majority owned of the supporters as the majority are in Germany. If West Brom whose true value was 100 million it would not be such a huge sum divided amongst 20,000 supporters whether they go the games or not.

What's spoiling football is the disgusting greed of foreign owners and knobs like Dowling who thinks he can spot talent but in reality all he can spot is a donkey!

Sounds terrible but if everyone woke up to the news that Lai was dead - would anyone care?

[DaveP67 is back!]

It’s a complete mess, in the case of English clubs the FA have a lot to answer for, the so called suitability test for owners is a joke, no one knows who actually owns the Albion! It should be legislated that football clubs are community assets and all profits re invested in the club and local communities, that would soon stop the owners who are just in it for profit!

[kettering_baggie]

It’s not just football that the Chinese are screwing up, nobody will convince me that they’re not wholly responsible for Covid19. The only debate as far as I am concerned is whether the bug escaped accidentally or it was deliberately released to **** up the West; at a guess, I’d go for the latter. As for us and the Albion, worrying times ahead.

[Yarmbaggie]

Football Clubs should be majority owned of the supporters as the majority are in Germany. If West Brom whose true value was 100 million it would not be such a huge sum divided amongst 20,000 supporters whether they go the games or not.

What's spoiling football is the disgusting greed of foreign owners and knobs like Dowling who thinks he can spot talent but in reality all he can spot is a donkey!

Sounds terrible but if everyone woke up to the news that Lai was dead - would anyone care?

On the last point no I wouldn’t.

The German system is better than ours but far from perfect. The Bundesliga is a one team league, mainly because of the 50+1 rule. Bayern win it every year and that isn’t going to change anytime soon unless they allow a foreign, or rich owner to take over elsewhere. Football is huge in Germany but they cannot get anywhere near the money the EPL gets for tv rights as it isn’t competitive, and they cannot sell the product overseas.

Several teams are already owned by individuals, Wolfsburg who finished 4th and qualify for Champions league, Leverkusen finished 6th and qualify for Europa league and Hoffenheim finished 11th. All have had a substantial investor for at least 20 years and therefore they can buy the club and get over the 50+1 rule. At least they finishing high up the league due to investors!

Then there is Red Bull Leipzig! Hated in Germany because they circumnavigate the rules to get around the 50+1. Only about 20 fans own the 50+1 and they are all senior employees of Red Bull. They dont allow anyone else in the 50+1 so effectively do what they (Red Bull) want. Second in the league and regulars in Champions league after recent formation of the club after taking over a lower league club. Successful due to investors.

Can we learn from it, yes I am sure we can. Our PL has had Chelsea and Man City challenging or taking over from the original big two of Man U and Liverpool because of overseas investors. We have therefore had greater number of winners across the EPL and a far better product to sell worldwide.

As ever not straightforward or as easy as it seems but we do need, in my opinion, to find a new way, not the German way, to make our football more than just a completion across various brands.

[mickd1961]

Imagine you were in Lai’s shoes........a snug fit in hindsight 😩

All this turmoil in China and now we are in a relegation summer.

I’m not sure how much the first tranche of bubble payment from the Premier League is or when we get it, I’m sure one of you will know?

The sale of Pereira and Johnstone is a given and possibly Diangana and a few fringe players as well, you could easily see £40m coming in from these sales.

Add those two together and you’re looking at around £100m.

He’d only then need around £75m back from the sale of the club to get his money back.

That would need 20,000 supporters to each stump up £3750 each for a share and n the club, I’d bet a huge number would buy one or more shares at that price.

Even if the supporters were asked for the £175m I’m sure this money could be raised, a plan could be put together by a fans association.

The problem with people like Lai is that they don’t want people like you and me to own it, they’d rather destroy it than admit failure and get their money back!

I’d be willing to put £100k to £200k into fans buy out, possibly more and I’m sure there’s many others that would put in anything from £1k to £1m or more if this was done properly.

Is there any way we could raise a profile for a buy out and get people together to discuss?

I’m happy to participate in anything that rids us of this cancer.

[Baggie Sharon]

I'd be interested in a fans buy out. No idea how to go about it, but if anyone does then i'd be obliged to be kept in the loop.

[BaggieBlood]

There was plenty written about the situation in China and in particular with Suning.

The Chinese government stopped all teams from using the names of companies that owned the teams in their club names.

As the companies were using this to promote themselves and would lose out from that exposure some packed it in altogether and one of those was Suning.

Regarding Inter they spent fortunes on the likes of Lukaku and with many teams (juve, real Madrid and those c???? Barcelona) suffering because of covid cutbacks need to be made.

Having said all that Chinese owners are generally s hit and their wealth is very dubious.

[WBA1955]

I have never seen good Chinese owners. Fosun seemed the best and started off like a house on fire at Wolves, but their interest appears to be waning, and they have already put twenty five per cent of their shares up for sale.
Perhaps they realise the enormous cost of having a top four premier league side.
Rich owners are very common now, most clubs have them apart from us.
All the more unbelievable how we have progressed in the last thirty years with miserly owners.