Tag: Birmingham City

If convicted money-launderer Carson Yeung Ka-Sing’s gruesome tenure as Championship strugglers Birmingham City’s main shareholder taught the club’s fans anything, it was ‘be careful what you wish for.’ West Midlands football is currently a Chinese hotbed, of course. And many risks and controversies are covered by owners at Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa. Investment conglomerate Fosun International turned Wolves £7.5m profit into a £23.18m loss in their first financial year at Molineux, indeterminate amounts of which have made their way to Jorge Mendes’ players’ agency, Gestifute, which is part-owned by…Fosun. Tony Xia’s ‘ambitious’ plans for his...

Since relegation from the Premier League at the end of the 2011/12 season, life hasn’t been particularly easy for the supporters of Birmingham City. A fourth place finish the following season was a decent enough return to the peculiar world of the Football League Championship, but since then the club has returned only two relatively soporific mid-table finishes and a narrow escape from the further ignominy of a further relegation to League One, on goal difference. It may even be worth considering that the most entertainment that Blues supporters have been able to grasp at over the last three...

“Birmingham City takeover saga drawing to a conclusion” ran the Birmingham Mail newspaper headline. “A sale looks increasingly imminent,” the article claimed. “Blues…director Panos Pavlakis returned to Hong Kong…at the start of the week…that in itself is significant,” it added. “Sources” confirmed: “The fact he jetted back shows we could be coming down to the nitty-gritty.” And it was noted, with weapons-grade understatement, that: “The process has been drawn out a little longer than hoped for.” The Mail’s take on the takeover. On 15th May 2014. The saga has now drawn to a conclusion, leaving the two major clubs...