Wolves blog: Wolves set to join the Billionaires Club

As the club's takeover saga rumbles on, Wolves fans are awaiting any scrap of news on Steve Morgan's projected sale of the club to multi-billionaire Robin Li.

Should the deal go through, Wolves will join a growing number of Championship clubs with billionaire owners... writes Wolves blogger Tom Tracey.

Neighbours Aston Villa have been taken over this summer by Dr Tony Xia. The true extent of his wealth is unclear but he is believed to be worth just over one billion US dollars.

Other Championship owners, such as Bristol City's Stephen Lansdown, Cardiff City's Vincent Tan and Nottingham Forest's Al Hasawi Family are all reported to have anywhere between $900 million (£700 million) and £2 billion.

Fulham's Shahid Khan and Newcastle United's Mike Ashley are both believed to be worth anything between £4bn and £5bn, whilst QPR shareholder Lakshmi Mittal is worth approximately £7bn, owning 33 per cent of the London club.

According to Forbes' Rich List, Robin Li trumps all other Championship owners with a current worth of just over £9bn – to put this into context, Chelsea's Roman Abromavich is reported to be worth £6.4bn.

This would put Wolves in second place in English football, after Manchester City, in the league of wealthiest owners.

For every Chelsea and Man City success story though, there is a QPR. Big spending did not equate to Premier League survival, leaving Harry Redknapp dismayed and saddled with the task of trying to offload uninterested players on huge pay packets.

As we have seen in recent seasons, Derby County have spent big in their attempt to get back into the Premier League, with owner Mel Morris in a wealth bracket closer to current Wolves owner Steve Morgan – although as a fan of Derby, Mr Morris has been happier to invest in his beloved club.

Newcastle United have already racked up a £25m total spend this summer, albeit offset by around £20m of sales, whilst Aston Villa, Leeds United and Bristol City have been among the more active purchasers, spending between £3m and £5m apiece so far.

Derby will be expected to continue spending on a fairly large scale whilst Sheffield Wednesday are becoming a more extravagant outfit than before, recently acquired by Thai businessman Dejphon Chansiri.

As mentioned in my last blog, Wolves are currently falling further and further behind their league rivals and new ownership is required just to prevent the losing of further ground, let alone making headway.

The invasion of the foreign billionaire owner is no longer just a top-flight phenomenon, and teams are willing to flout the financial fair play rules to reach the Promised Land.

Bournemouth were given a £7.6m fine for massive operating losses during their Championship winning season – a mere drop in the ocean of the now monstrous figures that they now benefit from, which are shared out amongst Premier League clubs.

Financial fair play rules will be relaxed slightly for the upcoming Championship season, in that they will now be measured as an average over three consecutive seasons – an average loss of £13m is allowed per season, or £35m per season for every season of the three spent in the Premier League.

This could potentially give teams more leeway in making a gamble to spend and get promoted, with a longer period before sanctions such as transfer embargoes are applied. Eight-figure transfer deals, such as Newcastle's signing of Matt Ritchie and Dwight Gayle, will become more common in the Championship.

Wolves' record transfer fee currently stands at £6.5 million, for both Kevin Doyle and Steven Fletcher.

With a new billionaire owner, Wolves could feasibly break their own transfer record whilst still in the Championship.