Looks like fans not happy there either, popped on my FB timeline. Basically: Elusive Owners Registered in Hong Kong Small Office space in HK No investment Ground falling apart and partial closures Proposal of selling the ground. Birmingham City fans are becoming increasingly frustrated with the club's elusive owners and have voiced their anger with widespread protests with more planned for future games. It comes after five consecutive seasons of relegation battles, transfer embargoes, Points deductions, the Stadium falling apart with steel erosion and asbestos contamination. The state of St Andrews has meant parts of the ground are closed for safety reasons leaving many bluenoses who purchased season tickets in good faith without a seat! and only getting one if they were fortunate enough to be pulled out of a lucky dip and even then there are reports the tickets never turned up! Birmingham Sports Holdings (BSH) the club's Hong Kong-based parent company that owns St Andrews announced the sale of their 75 per cent stake of Birmingham City Stadium Ltd the company that was set up in 2019 to allow the sale of the 115-year-old stadium within Financial Fair Play rules Very little is known about the companies who are buying the stake in the stadium company, Ms Kang Ming-Ming, is the registered owner of British Virgin Islands company Achiever Global Group and is named as the purchaser of the 75 per cent stake in the stadium company, while the other 25 per cent was sold off in De - mber 2020 to Chinese-Cambodian Vong Pech's Oriental Rainbow Investments. On the face of it, nothing connects these two people with almost no detail available online about either person or company. However, a small office in an expensive office block in Central Hong Kong has raised more questions. The majority of Hong Kong companies don't have to publicly file accounts, they do have to confirm to the Hong Kong Company Registry names of directors and owners. The proposed sale of the stadium company only invites more questions than answers. This is on top of the sale of Jude Bellingham for £25m and Che Adams £15m from the club and before that the tenure of ex-owner Hong Kong-based Carson Yeung who in March 2014 was convicted on five counts of money laundering and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. The fans are more disconnected and disillusioned than ever and now with all the BHS owners blocking people on social media who dare to ask questions, the alarm bells are really starting to ring! If any Bluenose fans want to get in touch and come on our Proper Football live show to give their views then please get in touch at getinvoved@properfootball.co.uk
Why has British football allowed these people in? It's so depressing regardless of which team you support. The trail of these characters is virtually impossible to follow ... something dodgy appears at every turn.
Think Scottish football have different rules n owners don't they, Conway struggled to get on the football owning ladder there.
They seem to have better rules than us English. Football was surely better when the local business man (greengrocer) was the chairman (not owner) of the club? I know times were hard and football stadia general not up to the standard they are now, but it was run better and for the right reasons (mainly).
I'm baffled as to why these people choose to get involved in club ownership in the first place. There may be marginal gains to be made, but it's not exactly the goose that laid the golden egg, and for the amount of hassle involved... The EFL as a ruling body needs to be scrapped and recreated as an independent organisation, one that runs the leagues and oversees clubs' actions with a rod of iron. There are far too many clubs and their owners taking the mick these days, with little or no consequences.
I really struggle to see much of a difference between Birmingham and Derby. Over the five years to May 2020 Birmingham have made losses of close on £80m and had debts of £110m. Payroll was around 140% of turnover. Maybe slightly more transparency with Mel Morris at Derby but both clubs have lived massively beyond their means and now the issues of overspending are coming home. No one wants to see football clubs go bust but a sensible approach to curbing spending and living within their means would be the starting point to avoid this outcome. The EFL need to act.
Think it was due to dual ownership. If I recall correctly Scotland don’t allow owners to own another club in Europe(but could be wrong).
