Will it be Werder Bremen Albion for West Brom owner Guochuan Lai?
Albion owner Guochuan Lai has reportedly entered talks with Werder Bremen over a potential partnership.
The Chinese businessman, who bought the Baggies off Jeremy Peace for more than £175million last August, is now looking to extend his footballing portfolio with an affiliation to the Bundesliga club.
According to reports in Germany, Werder’s directors are flying out to China this summer to hold talks with Yunyi Guokai Sports Development, the investment company Lai set up last year to buy Albion.
It comes after Lai bought Chinese striker Yuning Zhang from Vitesse Arnhem on a three-year deal and loaned him to Bremen for two years.
Taking over a German club is far more difficult than an English one because of the Bundesliga’s 50+1 rule, which stipulates that the members must retain overall control.
However, Chinese businessmen are attempting to grow links with German football.
Wolves owners Fosun tried to invest in Bremen before they bought Albion’s Black Country rivals last summer, but Bremen CEO Klaus Filbry said at the time that the club were looking for a strategic partnership rather than a financial investment.
It’s unclear yet what Bremen’s potential partnership with Yunyi Guokai and Albion would entail, but the Zhang loan may well be the first of many deals between the two clubs.
Although the fee for Zhang is not believed to be as much as the reported £7.6million, the money paid to Arnhem has not been taken out of Tony Pulis’s ring-fenced budget for the summer.
It was a signing rubber-stamped by Albion’s Chinese owners rather than the head coach, and one made with any future footballing benefit merely a a happy side effect to the commercial one that coincides with having one of China’s most famous footballers.
