football ownership

Before the Fosul era: an example of the art of Jody Craddock, a former Sunderland and Wolves stalwart, and reproduced with his consent

Stephen Benton, a sportswriter, notes the impressive turnaround in the fortunes of Wolverhampton Wanderers since being taken over by China’s Fosul Group in 2016: promotion back to the top flight last season and currently seventh top after another fine result, 3-1 winners at Everton. And he raises question about the powers behind the sport …

After a change in their club’s ownership, all Wolves fans in Wolverhampton had a wonderful year.

The new owners – a Chinese investment group called Fosun International – booted out the manager Kenny Jackett (the chief executive officer Jez Moxey stepped down on his own), replacing Jarrett with Walter Zenga and then Zenga by Paul Lambert before finally settling for Nuno Espírito Santo, a Portuguese international at various levels though he never won a full cap.

And with the close involvement of superstar sports agent Jorge Mendes, the team signed a dozen players. The result: Wolves finally returned to the Premier League after being out of it for six years.

Every decent football supporter was outraged by the Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre’s repugnant call for changes to TV rights that would divert more and more money to a handful of “big” clubs. Jeremy Robson is surprised more attention was not given to another corporate threat to the national game, this time from Suits of the imported variety …

Ten of the 20 current Premier League clubs are foreign owned. This would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

Of the current crop it was Fulham who were the first to be taken over by a foreign investor (Mohammed al Fayed), in 1997, when they were in the third tier. Much has changed in a short period (and that’s no pun or reference to our owner and chairman).

Why is this significant? What difference does it make where the money comes from?

We know who owns Wolves, but who owns football?

The Robson Report: killing football in ‘one foul swoop’