Reliable journalist details major Guochuan Lai stance on potential West Brom sale
Guochuan Lai would be open to selling West Brom or to discuss a “new potential partner” at The Hawthorns, according to The Athletic journalist Steve Madeley.
Writing on The Athletic website, the West Brom reporter said that Lai is not pursuing new investment at the club but “would be delighted” to enter talks about a potential sale.
However, the general feeling at The Hawthorns is that a sale is unlikely to happen at this stage with the club’s value decreasing since Lai bought it off Jeremey Peace in 2016 for £200million.
Madeley claims that Lai might have overpaid when he bought an 88 per cent stake in the Baggies four years ago and back then, Albion were an established Premier League club.
Now, they are one that has just returned to the Premier League and are among the favourites to be relegation back to the Championship.
Lai may want to sell. But he’s unlikely to recoup what he paid and it’s also unlikely there’ll be many buyers for a club that in less that a year’s time, could be back in the second-tier.
West Brom fans have been very frustrated with the club’s ownership since winning promotion last season.
Lai has not invested any money into the club. Whether he cannot do that or simply doesn’t want to remains to be seen but when he bought the club off Peace, the Chinese business did declare that he wants West Brom to be self-sufficient and use whatever money it makes to bring in new players.
Of course, we are in unprecedented times now.
Football’s financial landscape has changed due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and spending in the Premier League has led to the gulf in quality between the top-flight and the Championship to grow even bigger in the two years while Albion were in the second-tier.
But we’re not asking for an Aston Villa of Fulham-esque splurge on new players. All we’re asking for is for Slaven Bilic and Luke Dowling to have a decent sum of money to go out and sign that one centre-forward who is a major upgrade on the current striker options at The Hawthorns.
It’s becoming more and more apparent that in the Premier League, you have to spend money to make money.
If Lai wants to sell and get anywhere near what he paid for the Baggies, then he has to invest in his asset.
In other West Brom news, an Albion star has liked a post calling for Lai to leave the club.
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