Over recent years, football supporters in the Midlands will have noticed the steady
march of Chinese investment into British football. Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich
Albion are both under Chinese ownership, and Birmingham City remain under the control of
Trillion Trophy Asia, a holding company from Hong Kong.
Given the prevalence of foreign owners in the modern game, particularly in the Premier
League, and China’s growing relevance within the sport, these are hardly remarkable developments.
Yet the political machinations of faceless officials in the committee rooms of government
in Beijing are probably much closer to these clubs than supporters realise. Wolves and
West Brom are part of West Midlands conurbation, the third largest population centre in Britain
(with a population of almost 2.5 million people). It is a strategically important region, linking
North and South, at the heart of which, of course, is Birmingham, the country’s second
largest city behind London.
The region is not only in need of infrastructural investment, it is also playing a pivotal role
in the British government’s flagship infrastructural project – the High Speed 2 rail link.
China has already invested in the West Midlands’ transport network, for instance by helping
to fund improvements to a rail freight link from Southampton. This makes it much easier
to get Chinese products from one of Britain’s biggest deep water ports to one of its biggest
freight hubs.
It also provides some indications about the underpinning motives of
football club owners from China, who have also recently acquired Southampton. In 2017,
one of these club owners reached an agreement with government in Beijing to construct the
country’s first ever private high-speed rail link. By April this year, the corporation
involved had finalised a $4.2 billion financing for the project.
The corporation in question is Fosun, the Chinese conglomerate that owns Wolverhampton
Wanderers. It could be sheer coincidence, but Wolverhampton is also home to the former
headquarters of the now liquidated Carillion, a British company that was responsible for
leading construction of High Speed 2. In March 2019, stories emerged that China has expressed
a willingness to take over the HS2 project, a British official having travelled to meet
representatives of the China Railway Corporation (CRC).
One of state-owned CRC’s closest formal strategic partners is Fosun.
HS2 will be a vast project, the first phase from London to Birmingham will cost £27 billion;
the second phase from Birmingham northwards will cost a further £29 billion. For China,
its government and some of its biggest businesses, this would be a hugely lucrative contract
to secure.
Fosun’s ownership of Wolves has been very well received to this point. The club have
built a competitive side, they are currently qualified for the Europa League and, last
season, reached the semi-final of the FA Cup Cup. Unlike many foreign-owned clubs, supporters
have also been encouraged by the levels of communication between the owners and their
new community.
But perhaps it isn’t football that Fosun’s senior executives are specifically interested
in? Maybe the Chinese government is exercising some degree of control over Fosun, in the
same way that it has in overseeing stadium developments in fuel-rich countries hosting
the Africa Cup of Nations over the past decade.
Could it be that Fosun bought Wolves principally as a means to much
greater ends?
None of this should be a surprise, as we have already witnessed Chinese investors openly
admit to acquiring European clubs for reasons other than football alone.
In one case, some Chinese company officials wryly observed how they had bought the Czech
Republic with beer and football when CEFC Energy acquired a brewer, the Pivovary Lobkowicz
Group, as well as the country’s leading club: Slavia Prague.
Crucially, CEFC explained how football was an important means of driving its business
interests in Central and Eastern Europe. Later, a Chinese organisation with ambiguous links
to its government – Sinobo – took over running of the Czech club. Coincidentally,
in 2017 Sinobo also acquired Beijing Guoan of the Chinese Super League, overnight making
it one of the world’s most expensive clubs.
Though some might question the motives and limits of China’s football investments,
football fans should be in no doubt about the scale of the country’s involvement in
the sport. There is reportedly some affection for the game amongst the country’s top politicians
and, of course, President XI Jinping is an avid fan.
However, it is the country’s size and voracious appetite for resources and political power
that is the real driving force behind the its investments. Hence, as fans sit watching
football in stadiums from Franceville to Southampton, it is likely that a deep water port, reserve
of oil deposits or a major rail development is never very far away.