Foundinchina.com

News emerges today that Hong Kong based billionaire Carson Yeung, already a 29.9% stakeholder, is in the final stages of a planned takeover of English Premier League’s Birmingham City. Once in control one of his stated objectives is to help develop Chinese football:

“Over the past 10 years China has had its sports boosted, but there has been no development for football,” Yeung told British reporters when lodging the takeover bid.

“So I would like to make my humble contribution. In the future, when the team is stabilised, we will recruit Chinese players who have potential.

“My biggest wish is to bring the English Premier League club to China, promote English professionalism and football concepts to the Chinese, and to let the Chinese know how a English football team is managed.”

In a recent interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Vico Hui, chief executive of Grandtop International, Yeung’s investment vehicle which has launched the takeover attempt, made clear China would be a beneficiary.

“We will become the first Chinese owners of a club in the Premier League. Our business will be idolised. We will be bringing glory to the Chinese people,” he told the newspaper.

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At a time when both Koreas and Japan have successfully qualified for next year’s World Cup, China’s football failings are once again under the spotlight. China could certainly do with Yeung’s patriotic assistance given its staggering underachievement in this particular sporting field.

To quote again from the original report: “In the future, when the team is stabilised, we will recruit Chinese players who have potential”. Yeung clearly expects the China connection to make Birmingham City flavour of the month with the Chinese audience, and intends to cement this popularity with an infusion of Chinese talent. But here’s the problem: Given a cultural penchant for authoritarian control – and the stated intent of nurturing Chinese talent before a multitudinous and expectant audience – what are the chances of a Chinese boss keeping his nose out of the manager’s team selection?

And does Yeung have any idea what happens to football clubs that fall under dictatorial control? I guess it rather depends on what sort of boss Yeung is, but if he shares the megalomaniac tendencies exhibited in this cautionary tale, he’s going to have less chance of success in the EPL than China do in South Africa 2010.