Finance Guru reacts as Guochuan Lai deadline gets closer at West Brom
We’re delighted to welcome football finance expert Dr Daniel Plumley as our exclusive West Brom columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at The Hawthorns...
Dan Plumley has insisted that it is always difficult to recover a sour relationship as the West Brom loan deadline quickly approaches for Guochuan Lai.
The finance expert admitted that the low-interest rate attached to the £4.95million loan is much lower than what would be commanded in an external market.
Lai has until 31 December to pay off the loan, something which Ron Gourlay insisted is likely to happen with an announcement to confirm it too.
“It’s the optics of it, isn’t it,” he exclusively told West Brom News.
“It’s one of the pitfalls of football club ownership, isn’t it? Where you have a situation whereby the owner is controlling the shots and of course, that leaves a sour taste when the owner is loaning himself money from the club, and that is the problem with it linked to the interest rate and how low that is compared to what you’d command in the external market.
“That’s the problem, he is the owner and it’s his call so, I think, it’s one of those how it just highlights when things go slightly wrong with an ownership structure and they are solely reliant on one or a couple of individuals, so if a relationship turns sour, it’s really difficult to recover that position because the club in many ways are still reliant on that owner.”
Loan or no loan, the Baggies faithful let their feelings be known on Thursday 29 December with protests against Lai in the 2-0 win against Preston North End.
In other West Brom news, Jake Livermore is facing an uncertain future after the latest Carlos Corberan decision