Chinese closing in on Albion takeover
THE first full Chinese takeover of a Premier League club is expected to be finalised tomorrow when the protracted sale of West Bromwich Albion is due to be completed.
West Bromwich owner Jeremy Peace is selling a controlling 88 per cent of the club to a Chinese investment group headed by Guochuan Lai for a price believed to be around £175million.
The deal has been in the offing since early August but West Brom needed to win both Premier League approval and rubber-stamping from the Financial Conduct Authority as their financial services include a WBA credit card that brings them under the jurisdiction of the FCA. Peace is expected to stay on as a consultant until the end of the season.
Meanwhile, a second Chinese consortium, led by Chien Lee, owner of French club Nice, are in talks with Hull following the breakdown of a different bid from China. Strangely, considering his acrimonious parting from Hull in 2009, former chairman Paul Duffen is one of Lee’s advisers.
Championship clubs Aston Villa and Wolves are already under Chinese ownership.
ALLOWING Premier League referees Anthony Taylor and Jon Moss to provide the entertainment at a dinner on the eve of a match contrasts with the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd’s decision to stop top official Mark Clattenburg from addressing referees from around Europe at a pre-season youth tournament. The PGMO called that invitation ‘inappropriate’. It is understood the PGMO opposed it after former PL officials Keith Hackett and Mark Halsey — both critics of the PGMO regime — got involved in the event. IT IS difficult to see how anything definitive can come out of today’s counties summit over the future flagship T20 competition. The farcical non- disclosure agreements imposed on the talks has meant that the 18 county boards have not had a proper opportunity to discuss where they stand. Meanwhile, such are cricket’s conflicts of interest, Yorkshire can hardly oppose the city-based option that ECB chairman Colin Graves (above) is backing so strongly because Graves effectively owns the county cricket club.
AFTER a three-year fight for a level playing field on the Sky TV platform for pay-per-view boxing, Frank Warren’s subscription channel BoxNation will now be available to Sky Sports subscribers for the first time. This means Warren can compete against Sky’s inhouse promoter Eddie Hearn to put on big fights in the knowledge they now have an equal opportunity to attract a PPV audience.
Rio’s golden legacy
THE early signs are encouraging that Rio 2016 may succeed where London 2012 did not in sparking a growth in sports participation. More than 900,000 took part in some capacity in ITV’s sports activity day I Am Team GB, while hockey clubs have had a spike of more than 60 per cent in membership interest since Team GB women’s remarkable gold medal victory. Meanwhile, BOA chief executive Bill Sweeney is showing attention to detail ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 by starting to learn how to write in Japanese.
TOTTENHAM chairman Daniel Levy is known for extricating as much as he can out of every deal. But in fairness, Spurs have got their ticket pricing spot on for their Champions League games at Wembley, with a crowd of more than 85,000 expected for tonight’s opening match against Monaco. Group stage packages costing between £70 and £150 in total for three games have proved hugely popular, with 52,000 seats sold for every group match. And with Chelsea postponing their move out of Stamford Bridge by a year, Spurs will be the sole football tenants at Wembley next season. THE same headhunters behind Andy Cosslett’s recommendation as RFU chairman, the Michael Squires-led Sports Recruitment International, have been chosen by Premiership Rugby to find an independent chairman after Quentin Smith stands down after a six-year stint. This will be no easy task as Smith has done an outstanding job keeping the disparate club owners working together, but he feels it has become increasingly difficult to maintain his independent position.