Author Topic: Guochuan Lai  (Read 2349381 times)

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gazberg

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6450 on: October 10, 2020, 11:42:49 AM »
To be fair i also read somewhere that the budget was halved from £35-40m though. This was just after the time Bilic started giving weird sounding interviews as i remember saying to myself thats the sound of a man whos had his transfer budger slashed. Then a few days later and newspaper reported Bilic wasnt happy as he now had 15m less to spend. I'll be damned if i can remember where though.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6451 on: October 10, 2020, 11:50:09 AM »
I feel so deflated. On promotion I felt this was a second chance to achieve something meaningful a second time around in the premier league. I was looking forward to taking on Villa and looked to Wolves as an example of what we could do in the first couple of seasons with some luck and good recruitment. Yet now I see our rivals on a different level, I see the same approach from the club that make us a joke outside and a frustration within.

The Southampton game was all too familiar for me and a classic example of Albion in the premier league. The majority of scouting targets appear restricted to the M25 belt and the prospect of Gray from Watford is truly, truly awful. Admittedly we haven’t signed some of these (poor) players linked but it’s clear at this stage the approach the club are taking.

My fear is we are relegated with a whimper, embarking on a championship campaign without Pereira and/ or Diangana, with a goalkeeper the fans rightly or wrongly hate, without a strikeforce for a third season, and without a top-class manager for that level in Bilic.

I appreciate it is very early in the campaign and that our business in the market is incomplete so apologies for being negative. I’m just at a point where this seems all too familiar and I’ve become pverly sensitive to a) our reputation as a club and b) how well our rivals have progressed. Hopefully my fears are wrong, we tighten up as a unit sign a goal scorer, stay up and build from there. I appreciate we need more from certain players on the pitch, however I also expected more from senior leaders at board room level at the club at this stage.

Well written post and I can imagine many Albion fans feel the same. Like has been spoken about many times before, the issues with club can be dated back to the 13/14 season. That’s when things went really wrong. I don’t believe our club has really recovered from the consistently poor decision making since then. To me, it feels like the spirit of the fan base has been damaged and not fully healed.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2020, 11:52:58 AM by PartisanBaggie »

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6452 on: October 10, 2020, 12:06:30 PM »
It's frustrating as a fan but If I thibk with my head, the lack of transfer budget balanced against long term survival of the club is a sensible thing. Infuriating but sensible. First season with lai in control transfer window shafted us for 2 years as we were paying for the mistakes of that year.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6453 on: October 10, 2020, 01:15:21 PM »
I don't know why there is so much negativity regarding Lai, he's potless and we knew he would not spend because he got nowt to spend.

We should he positive that he is looking to sell rather than let this mess of an ownership continue.

We can only hope we attract someone with proper ambition and the resources to match.

This season was always going to difficult and it is a bonus that we aren't already rooted to bottom 6 points away from safety, which still would have been preferable than no promotion at all from the skint championship.

We've got rid of the Burke and got GD and worse comes to worse we'll go down with parachute payments and hopefully rise again.

No one has ever splashed the cash around on us so nothing has changed with the inept Lai.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6454 on: October 10, 2020, 01:37:41 PM »
again reported in express and star money put a side today in express and star
[/b]

If the money was put aside today in the E&S then that will either be for the tea club or the office lottery tickets..... ;D
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6455 on: October 10, 2020, 01:52:29 PM »
I don't know why there is so much negativity regarding Lai, he's potless and we knew he would not spend because he got nowt to spend.

We should he positive that he is looking to sell rather than let this mess of an ownership continue.

We can only hope we attract someone with proper ambition and the resources to match.

This season was always going to difficult and it is a bonus that we aren't already rooted to bottom 6 points away from safety, which still would have been preferable than no promotion at all from the skint championship.

We've got rid of the Burke and got GD and worse comes to worse we'll go down with parachute payments and hopefully rise again.

No one has ever splashed the cash around on us so nothing has changed with the inept Lai.

Lai snd his consortium should never have even bought the club. Period.

That’s a fairly good place to start in terms of negativity from fans.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6456 on: October 10, 2020, 03:55:40 PM »
Lai snd his consortium should never have even bought the club. Period.

That’s a fairly good place to start in terms of negativity from fans.

Why shouldn't they have bought the club? From a fans perspective with the benefit of hindsight then yes it's been poor but exactly as he said he would run the club.
From a business point of view when he bought the club we were a Premier League club who looked like a good way to promote his Palm Eco Towns back in China.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6457 on: October 10, 2020, 04:12:37 PM »
I feel so deflated. On promotion I felt this was a second chance to achieve something meaningful a second time around in the premier league. I was looking forward to taking on Villa and looked to Wolves as an example of what we could do in the first couple of seasons with some luck and good recruitment. Yet now I see our rivals on a different level, I see the same approach from the club that make us a joke outside and a frustration within.

The Southampton game was all too familiar for me and a classic example of Albion in the premier league. The majority of scouting targets appear restricted to the M25 belt and the prospect of Gray from Watford is truly, truly awful. Admittedly we haven’t signed some of these (poor) players linked but it’s clear at this stage the approach the club are taking.

My fear is we are relegated with a whimper, embarking on a championship campaign without Pereira and/ or Diangana, with a goalkeeper the fans rightly or wrongly hate, without a strikeforce for a third season, and without a top-class manager for that level in Bilic.

I appreciate it is very early in the campaign and that our business in the market is incomplete so apologies for being negative. I’m just at a point where this seems all too familiar and I’ve become pverly sensitive to a) our reputation as a club and b) how well our rivals have progressed. Hopefully my fears are wrong, we tighten up as a unit sign a goal scorer, stay up and build from there. I appreciate we need more from certain players on the pitch, however I also expected more from senior leaders at board room level at the club at this stage.
I don't think you could ever look at our local rivals as an example, they have owners with money to spend.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6458 on: October 10, 2020, 06:16:59 PM »
Why shouldn't they have bought the club? From a fans perspective with the benefit of hindsight then yes it's been poor but exactly as he said he would run the club.
From a business point of view when he bought the club we were a Premier League club who looked like a good way to promote his Palm Eco Towns back in China.

West Bromwich Albion and landscape gardening in China was never, ever going to work. What an earth were they thinking about...exporting the grass from the pitch of our beloved Hawthorn’s as some sort of miracle grow across the Chinese peninsula?!

For me personally, it’s not with the benefit of hindsight. I’ve been completely against Yunyi Guokai Sports Development Limited ownership of WBA from day one. Anyone that knows me personally will attest to that.

The club had grown completely stagnant under JP. To move onto the next level, we needed an owner who would be willing to spend some money. We’d gone as far as we could go in terms of the club running itself. Having Guochan Lai following the same model, the only way we could go was backwards, which we have.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2020, 06:19:40 PM by PartisanBaggie »

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6459 on: October 10, 2020, 06:24:55 PM »
West Bromwich Albion and landscape gardening in China was never, ever going to work. What an earth were they thinking about...exporting the grass from the pitch of our beloved Hawthorn’s as some sort of miracle grow across the Chinese peninsula?!

For me personally, it’s not with the benefit of hindsight. I’ve been completely against Yunyi Guokai Sports Development Limited ownership of WBA from day one. Anyone that knows me personally will attest to that.

The club had grown completely stagnant under JP. To move onto the next level, we needed an owner who would be willing to spend some money. We’d gone as far as we could go in terms of the club running itself. Having Guochan Lai following the same model, the only way we could go was backwards, which we have.

At the time Lai and his consortium took over there was also the impending HS2 no doubt there were landscaping contracts up for negotiation on that . Thought that was more realistic than eco towns .

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6460 on: October 10, 2020, 06:56:27 PM »
sounding like orange man across the pound what is it fake news!!!

What evidence have you got that Lai is a pound sterling billionaire?

The only thing we know for certain about him is that he is the founder & now a director of Palm Eco Town Development Ltd.
The company is listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange & the share price is currently around 70% lower than it was at it's peak in 2017.
In 2017, the company had backing of around 2000 million yuan (around £200 million pounds sterling)
I'd be interested to see evidence of any other wealth attributed to GL.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2020, 08:11:24 PM by baggiejohn »
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6461 on: October 10, 2020, 07:59:36 PM »
Shenzhen sock exchange,

tights, knickers, and stockings prices are very important you know !
the road to the summit has dips, keep the faith when navigating those dips !!
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6462 on: October 10, 2020, 08:11:10 PM »
If you buy a football club, at whatever level, then I think that you have to accept a responsibility towards the fans. Even if the purchase is a purely commercial one in terms of intent, any buyer must surely understand that the fans live and breathe their football club, and that any owner, despite having legal ownership, is actually merely a custodian. Lai has shown absolutely zero interest in the supporters and it is that lack of interest and his disrespect for us that really annoys me. I despise the man and the truly awful country that he comes from (a totalitarian police state) and when the time comes that he is gone, it will be a huge hurrah from me and good riddance.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6463 on: October 10, 2020, 08:15:46 PM »
Shenzhen sock exchange,

tights, knickers, and stockings prices are very important you know !

Thank you, corrected now. :D





If it was easy, it wouldn't be Albion

A wise old owl sat in an oak, the more he saw, the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard, why aren't we like that wise old bird?

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6464 on: October 10, 2020, 09:10:28 PM »
If you buy a football club, at whatever level, then I think that you have to accept a responsibility towards the fans. Even if the purchase is a purely commercial one in terms of intent, any buyer must surely understand that the fans live and breathe their football club, and that any owner, despite having legal ownership, is actually merely a custodian. Lai has shown absolutely zero interest in the supporters and it is that lack of interest and his disrespect for us that really annoys me. I despise the man and the truly awful country that he comes from (a totalitarian police state) and when the time comes that he is gone, it will be a huge hurrah from me and good riddance.

On the contrary, to the tune of a beer and a scarf he's given us more than Jezza ever did.  ;D
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6465 on: October 10, 2020, 09:15:02 PM »
If you buy a football club, at whatever level, then I think that you have to accept a responsibility towards the fans. Even if the purchase is a purely commercial one in terms of intent, any buyer must surely understand that the fans live and breathe their football club, and that any owner, despite having legal ownership, is actually merely a custodian. Lai has shown absolutely zero interest in the supporters and it is that lack of interest and his disrespect for us that really annoys me. I despise the man and the truly awful country that he comes from (a totalitarian police state) and when the time comes that he is gone, it will be a huge hurrah from me and good riddance.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6466 on: October 11, 2020, 01:23:03 AM »
Lai snd his consortium should never have even bought the club. Period.

That’s a fairly good place to start in terms of negativity from fans.

Then blame the black Country boy, lifelong wba fan who said he would sell us to someone who would take us forward, and who is laughing it up in his Jersey mansion.

Lai is just totally stupid idiot who never said he was one of us to through the door as a wolves in sheeps clothing.

We just got to hope the next owner comes in quickly and is a damn site better than the last 2.


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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6467 on: October 11, 2020, 11:12:33 AM »
I feel so deflated. On promotion I felt this was a second chance to achieve something meaningful a second time around in the premier league. I was looking forward to taking on Villa and looked to Wolves as an example of what we could do in the first couple of seasons with some luck and good recruitment. Yet now I see our rivals on a different level, I see the same approach from the club that make us a joke outside and a frustration within.

The Southampton game was all too familiar for me and a classic example of Albion in the premier league. The majority of scouting targets appear restricted to the M25 belt and the prospect of Gray from Watford is truly, truly awful. Admittedly we haven’t signed some of these (poor) players linked but it’s clear at this stage the approach the club are taking.

My fear is we are relegated with a whimper, embarking on a championship campaign without Pereira and/ or Diangana, with a goalkeeper the fans rightly or wrongly hate, without a strikeforce for a third season, and without a top-class manager for that level in Bilic.

I appreciate it is very early in the campaign and that our business in the market is incomplete so apologies for being negative. I’m just at a point where this seems all too familiar and I’ve become pverly sensitive to a) our reputation as a club and b) how well our rivals have progressed. Hopefully my fears are wrong, we tighten up as a unit sign a goal scorer, stay up and build from there. I appreciate we need more from certain players on the pitch, however I also expected more from senior leaders at board room level at the club at this stage.

I'm with you on every thought and sentiment in that. When we got Bilic, then Pereira and Diangana came in, I felt hopeful for the first time in ages. Come on you Baggies Board.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6468 on: October 11, 2020, 06:15:16 PM »
I don't know why there is so much negativity regarding Lai, he's potless and we knew he would not spend because he got nowt to spend.

We should he positive that he is looking to sell rather than let this mess of an ownership continue.

We can only hope we attract someone with proper ambition and the resources to match.

This season was always going to difficult and it is a bonus that we aren't already rooted to bottom 6 points away from safety, which still would have been preferable than no promotion at all from the skint championship.

We've got rid of the Burke and got GD and worse comes to worse we'll go down with parachute payments and hopefully rise again.

No one has ever splashed the cash around on us so nothing has changed with the inept Lai.




I couldn't agree more.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6469 on: October 11, 2020, 06:46:29 PM »
On the contrary, to the tune of a beer and a scarf he's given us more than Jezza ever did.  ;D

Do you class that bottle of **** that Lai ‘gave’ us as beer?

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6470 on: October 11, 2020, 06:51:13 PM »
Do you class that bottle of **** that Lai ‘gave’ us as beer?

Whatever you class it as my statement remains true.

This guy is no worse than the last guy.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6471 on: October 12, 2020, 09:07:36 AM »
Whatever you class it as my statement remains true.

This guy is no worse than the last guy.

This may well be true, though with Peace he was, for the most part, at the matches and had his ear to the ground and, again for the majority of the time, was very hands on.

Not saying at all that Peace was great and Mr Lai isn't, but the perception of a lack of interest will always fan the flames of discontent when things are not going well.

The present ownership appears distant in every aspect of the word, with supporters feeling more detached by the day (and I know some of that is clearly outside of the control of the club)

Totally appreciate a couple of wins will change the overriding mood plus not being able to attend, with no end in sight, is clearly getting to supporters now (I know it most definitely is for me).

Mr Lai may be a top bloke, really looking to bring success to the club, but several seasons down the line, none us really have a clue as to whether he is or not.
 

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6472 on: October 12, 2020, 10:03:02 AM »
If you buy a football club, at whatever level, then I think that you have to accept a responsibility towards the fans. Even if the purchase is a purely commercial one in terms of intent, any buyer must surely understand that the fans live and breathe their football club, and that any owner, despite having legal ownership, is actually merely a custodian. Lai has shown absolutely zero interest in the supporters and it is that lack of interest and his disrespect for us that really annoys me. I despise the man and the truly awful country that he comes from (a totalitarian police state) and when the time comes that he is gone, it will be a huge hurrah from me and good riddance.

As a lifelong Albion fan I 100% agree with you.  However, as someone who has sold some large sporting assets professionally, it’s more difficult.  Selling any sporting asset is incredibly difficult and time consuming and reflected in the fees that are typically 3-5% of consideration.  Yep, on a £100m sale I have quoted and been paid £3-5m.  No one pays such large sums unless it’s recognised that the job is very difficult to achieve.  And that’s when I have the whole world of contacts to work my way through.   If the vendor says “you have to sell to someone who will invest in the club and put supporters interests first”, a small universe shrinks massively.   It’s a bit like selling your house but telling the agent that you will only sell to someone who will agree to keep your prize roses for the next 10 years.   You may still sell your house but it’s going to take a lot longer and you may have to accept a lower price. 

There’s also sadly no interest from within football for this to change.  I know for a fact that there have been lots of proposed changes to some of the ownership rules but there is no desire from the clubs to accept these changes.   And that’s not just the “big” clubs blocking such changes.  The reluctance goes all the way through football.   Most owners just don’t want to be told that they can’t sell their asset to a wealthy foreigner.   Again, think about it in the context of your biggest asset- would you volunteer to change the deeds of your house to prevent you selling it if a crazy foreign buyer offered you twice what it’s worth?   The governing bodies of football aren’t government departments or quangos.  They are ultimately clubs and can only do what members want and their members don’t want to exclude buyers who have got no “investment cash” or loyalty to the club.

Sadly, this isn’t going to change.   It really is sad in many ways because football clubs aren’t like other businesses.  People aren’t bereft when their local shop or cinema struggles but whole regions can be deeply affected by losses such as Bury.  Maybe in a post Covid world football will find a new level.   Lower league clubs should be profitable- they generate a huge amount of cash but need to pay players “only” £10k per week rather than £20k.  Maybe that will work it’s way through and find that smaller clubs will once again be owned by local people who have the interests of the club at heart.   Maybe clubs in L1 and L2 can be owned again by local people who have done well building a firm of accountants or selling a construction business; millionaires rather than multi billionaires.   I can’t see that trend ever reaching the Premier again.  The days when a local-lad-done-good buys the Albion are gone for ever.  Premiership clubs are global status symbols now alongside works of art and iconic buildings. 

Could JP have got us a better buyer?  Who knows.   I hear that he was in talks with some serious people including Fosun.  We will never know how close they came.   However, as said earlier, it’s incredibly difficult getting any buyer to the finish line and with Lai lined up to pay a transformational amount of money, it would have taken a brave man to turn that down in the hope of landing someone who would also invest.  Could he have left some money in the deal for investment?  The problem is the irrelevance of large sums of money in football.   He could have agreed to take £20m less from Lai in return for that being invested back in the club.   What does that get us, a £10m left back and his wages for 3 years...?  A big sacrifice for JP but probably no difference to our destiny on the pitch.

In the end, the Albion is a journey, not a destination.   We will have plenty of ups and downs over the years ahead and lots of twists to the plot.  Lai will one day be in the rear view mirror along side JP etc.   They won’t be Albion fans. They may or may not invest.  But we will still be there.   COYB.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6473 on: October 12, 2020, 10:12:53 AM »
That's a superb post, stoxman. A lot of stuff that isn't good to read, but of course perfect sense and needs to be said.

And COYB.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #6474 on: October 12, 2020, 11:18:35 AM »
Could JP have got us a better buyer?  Who knows.   I hear that he was in talks with some serious people including Fosun.  We will never know how close they came.   However, as said earlier, it’s incredibly difficult getting any buyer to the finish line and with Lai lined up to pay a transformational amount of money, it would have taken a brave man to turn that down in the hope of landing someone who would also invest.  Could he have left some money in the deal for investment?  The problem is the irrelevance of large sums of money in football.   He could have agreed to take £20m less from Lai in return for that being invested back in the club.   What does that get us, a £10m left back and his wages for 3 years...?  A big sacrifice for JP but probably no difference to our destiny on the pitch.
As I recall, Peace personally paid very little when he acquired the club and didn't put any money into the club after that. Therefore, what he sold the club for was pretty much pure profit, so there wasn't a big sacrifice. Just how much money does one person need? If he'd truly had the best interests of the club at heart, he could have sold it for less and had a larger range of buyers to choose from, with whoever bought the club hopefully having been willing/able to spend more on building up the quality of the squad as a result of buying the club for a lower price.

Peace didn't do that, so you can only assume that he was simply looking after Number 1 and any notion of benevolence on his part is just a sham.