West Brom fan group outline Guochuan Lai fury to Number 10
A fan group wants to use Albion’s 2016 sale as a retrospective case study after detailing the club’s financial concerns to government chiefs at Downing Street.
Action for Albion have been campaigning against majority shareholder Guochuan Lai, who bought the club seven years ago for £200million.
The Chinese businessman has provided precious little investment in his tenure at The Hawthorns and the club could be set for a third season in the Championship should Carlos Corberan’s side not achieve promotion via the play-offs. The group, minority shareholders and fans are also furious with failed repayment on a £4.95m loan, now two years old, and a £20m loan to cover bills as a safety net.
Alistair Jones, founder of Action for Albion, was yesterday invited to Number 10 as a ‘community champion’, by Nicola Richards, MP for West Bromwich East, where he had an audience with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
“It’s something we’re very proud of, we started at the end of October and to have an audience with the Sports Minister and Prime Minister is a phenomenal achievement for the group,” said Jones, whose group earlier this month organised a march attended by thousands of upset fans outside The Hawthorns.
“It’s a testament to the way we’ve gone about things, we believe the only way for real change, through dialogue and communication. We started that with the club and took it to the political arena.”
Jones, a lifelong Albion fan, spoke the group’s cause to Mr Sunak and Parliamentary Under Secretary for Sport, Gambling and Civil Society Stuart Andrew MP – to whom he called on the government to use Albion’s sale as an example in the plans for a new regulator in a football governance reboot.
“We feel the football white paper on government has got to have teeth,” Jones said. “I suggested directly to Mr Andrew that Guochuan Lai’s purchase as majority shareholder in 2016 as a retrospective case study to see if the governance would stop the sale of WBA Holdings and WBA Group to Guochuan Lai.
“Because if it didn’t then the white paper isn’t worth the paper it is written on. We can all see this has been a disastrous purchase from Guochuan Lai, I explained to Mr Andrew we borrowed £20million to pay our bills, because someone has taken £12million from our business. That cannot be right.”
The fan group added they are indebted to Richards MP for the WBA Foundation Trustee’s support in raising awareness in their campaign.
