In 2016, premier league rights signed a three-year contract worth a total of 8.8 billion pounds.
This new big contract means that premier league teams can earn nearly hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue every season on the distribution rights dividend alone.
For a time, the seductive "big cake" of the Premier League attracted the attention of many investors.
Lai Guochuan, a wealthy businessman from Guangdong, took a fancy to West Brom, who had maintained profitability and good financial conditions for three consecutive seasons, and was in the Premier League.
In August 2016, Lai bought an 88% stake in West Brom for £175 million (1.6 billion yuan), becoming the new owner of West Brom.
It is also the first Premier League team to be controlled by Chinese capital.
What made West Brom famous in China was a transfer deal: in July 2017, West Brom announced the signing of 20-year-old Chinese striker Zhang Yuning for 7.2 million euros.
However, this high-profile transfer eventually evolved into "the worst signing in the history of the team in a hundred years".
Since he has not been granted a labour certificate, Zhang Yuning has not played a single game for West Brom after the transfer.
According to FA regulations, players from non-EU member states who want to play in England must first apply for a labour permit.
Applicants who are under the age of 21 and need to meet the requirements for the labor certificate: 1. Participate in 75% of the international A-level matches of the national team (starting or substitute) in the first 12 months of the application; 2. The country's FIFA ranking should be in the top 64.
Obviously, Zhang Yuning's situation at that time did not meet the conditions for appeal.
Therefore, only the "genius regulation" in the special clause can be considered - landing in the leagues of other eu countries, earning points, and obtaining a labor certification.
However, due to the limited level of competition, Zhang Yuning did not get a single chance to play in the nearly one year he spent on loan to Bremen in the Bundesliga.
In August 2018, West Brom loaned Zhang Yuning to The Hague, and in the seven months of loan time, Zhang Yuning only got 6 substitute appearances, but did not win anything.
Zhang Yuning, who has no ball to play overseas, moved to Beijing Guoan in February 2019, announcing the end of his nearly two-year career in foreign countries.
Opportunity to acquire West Brom
The shareholders who acquired 88% of the shares of the West Brom team include: Yuntai Investment, which accounted for 17.68% of the shares + 59.52% of the shares, Yunyi Investment+ 22.8% of the shares of Yunjin Investment, but the real connection behind it is a palm share in which the main industry is a garden, and Lai Guochuan holds shares.
The annual performance statement of Palm Shares in 2015 showed a loss of 211 million, down 149.39% year-on-year. This is the first time that Palm shares have lost money since its listing, and the stock price has also shown a downward trend.
In the context of the fiery sports industry, Lai Guochuan hopes to create a trend of "sports + garden" by entering the influential football circle to save the company's stock price.
A business investment, a club that gradually became chaotic after the "hand-throwing treasurer" entered the ownership
The acquisition of West Brom is a business investment for Lai Guochuan.
The timing of the acquisition was not ideal, with only 10 days left before the opening of the new Premier League season. The team's pre-match run-in training and signing trades are over.
At this time, parachuting in a management who does not know much about the Premier League and has zero experience in managing the team can be said to be completely unsupported for the internal affairs of the club.
Adhering to the concept of "professional things, by professional people to do".
Boss Lai Guochuan has adopted a relatively relaxed letting go posture in the appointment and dismissal of club management and professional managers.
But the consequence of letting go too much is that the club will face a fire pit in the future.
In the structure of the old team, West Brom spent the 16/17 season safely: West Brom finished 10th in the Premier League with 12 wins, 9 draws and 17 defeats.
- (1) In the chaotic 17/18 season, there were 4 consecutive managers, but they still could not escape the fate of relegation
With the main players of last season basically retained, at the beginning of the 17/18 season, the team also invested heavily in the introduction of several strong reinforcements.
However this seemingly enhanced lineup was in head coach Tony. Under the leadership of Philippe, he suffered a 10-round winless start, ranking 17th in the Premier League, deep in the relegation zone.
Philip
On November 20, 2017, West Brom announced the departure of Philippe to help coach Gray Phillips. Mason served as interim head coach.
Philip's departure made the West Brom fans, who had long been dissatisfied with Philippe, happy.
When playing against strong teams at home, Pulis often adopts too conservative tactics, often posing in a 5-centre-back + 5-back formation, making the game unattractive. Almost defensively throughout the game, there were no couples of teams attacking with the ball. For this reason, it is often applauded and booed by fans.
Alan. Pathum
He then coached the experienced Alain. Paddy was quick to take office, but did not expect that this choice completely dashed West Brom's hopes of relegation.
Alain, who bears the burden of relegation. Padu, after leading the team to participate in 18 rounds of Premier League matches, won 1 win, drew 5 and lost 12 losses, so that the team only scored 8 points, ranking at the bottom.
Repeated defeats have made the team's locker room discordant.
The team's main players Brent and Jacob took the lead in provoking trouble in the locker room, openly questioning Pardu's coaching ability.
Brent
Even more outrageous, when the team went to Barcelona for training in the winter window, there was also a scandal: 4 players in West Brom, Barry, Evans, LevyMore and Maxell, did not comply with the local curfew, stole a taxi, and went into the city late at night to mess around.
Barry
After the scandal came to light in mid-February 2018, West Brom Club president John Blanc announced that he would be in a position to return to the scandal. Williams and CEO Martin. Goodman resigned.
West Brom, who announced relegation four rounds in advance, announced Padu's departure in April 2018, and coaching staff member Darren Lee was released. Moore became interim head coach and led the team through the rest of the games.
Darren. moles
After changing 4 managers in one season, West Brom, who lost and lost, ended up with 6 wins, 13 draws and 19 losses, and the bottom of the ranking fell into the Championship.
Even more fatal is the loss of £7.5 million in the 17/18 season due to heavy sums of money spent on signing Zhang Yuning (including 6.9 million pounds to sign Zhang Yuning).
- (2) Regain confidence but regret the 18/19 season in which he failed to finish fourth
Determined to make a comeback, West Brom decided to let Darren, who led the team to a good result in the last six rounds of last season. Moore officially became the team's head coach this season.
Thanks to Moore's efforts, the atmosphere in the team's dressing room eased.
Regaining confidence, West Brom achieved good results in the first half of the season, but suddenly dropped the chain in the second half of the season.
After only 4 wins in 12 rounds of the league, he finished 4th in the league with 23 wins, 11 draws and 12 losses, and did not qualify for the top 2 direct promotion.
Facing Aston Villa in the promotion play-offs, West Brom lost 1-2 in the first leg; West Brom equalized 1-0 at home in the second leg; and West Brom lost 3:4 in the final penalty shootout.
Due to the failure to lead the team back to the Premier League, the club announced on 10 March 2019 that Darren Bergeron would return to the Premier League. Moore leaves office.
In the 18/19 season, when the championship's broadcast royalties were greatly reduced compared to those of the Premier League, the club's financial statements showed a loss of £7 million
- (3) In the 19/20 season, he was successfully promoted back to the Premier League with the status of the second runner-up of the Championship.
The new season is under head coach Slavin. Under Bilic's leadership, West Brom's performance was once among the best, but the league was forced to stop due to the epidemic.
Bilic
After the make-up match, with the offensive end Hal. Robson scored 10 goals, Charlie. Austin scored 10 goals, midfielder Mateus. Pereira contributed 16 assists to help the team eventually finish second in the Championship and return to the Premier League.
Due to the club's investment in reinforcements, on the other hand, due to the reduction in ticket revenue due to the impact of the epidemic, the club's financial situation in the 19/20 season reached a loss of 17 million pounds
- (4) The 20/21 Premier League relegation failed in the high-open and low-going season.
The squad essentially retained last season's main line-up, and also poached Barnsley's midfielder Moart.
Due to playing too conservatively, in 13 rounds of matches this season, the team only accumulated 7 points with 1 win, 4 draws and 8 losses, and the unsatisfactory results made Bilic leave the class after 200 days in charge of West Brom.
On 17 December 2020, the club announced Allardyce as the team's manager.
Allardyce
But Allardyce also failed to become the savior of the team, and West Brom was relegated again with a record of 5 wins, 11 draws and 22 losses, ranking second from the bottom.
After the team's relegation failure, Allardyce left after consultation between the two sides.
- (5) The 21/22 season, which has been announced in advance, is hopeless for promotion
In the 2022 winter window, West Brom introduced Dick from Orlando City for 8.6 million euros.
In the 20/21 season, Dick scored 11 goals and 1 assist in 19 games.
Due to injury, Dick has only made 2 appearances this season, with 0 goals and 0 assists.
On February 4, West Brom recently confirmed the new manager, Steve Bruce, who has 1,000 coaching experience and led the team to the Premier League four times, took over the team, but embarrassingly, Bruce took over 5 games without a win.
Bruce
With only six rounds left in the Championship, West Brom, who have won 15 games, drawn 12 and lost 13 in 40 games, and are ranked 11th in the ranking with 57 points, have declared another defeat.
This also means that the boss Lai Guochuan wants to let the team return to the Premier League, so that the vision of the team's brand value is once again disappointed.
West Brom, who has repeatedly lifted and fallen in the Premier League and the Championship, reflects the helplessness of the small club
Small clubs like West Brom, the main source of income: broadcast rights share + ticket revenue.
- (1) Income decreases, and it is difficult for small clubs to maintain the operation of the club
Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2019, due to the great environmental impact, the PREMIER League's TV broadcast share has been greatly reduced; the stadium has not been fully open to fans, and ticket revenue and peripheral goods revenue have plummeted.
In the case of the reduction of each team's income, the big team can still support it, but the small club under the "self-sufficient" business model will face a severe winter.
Despite the support of the Premier League's "parachute clause", that is, relegated teams can get a gradual reduction in Premier League broadcast fees in the next 3 years, with an average share of 55%, 45% and 20% in the three years, respectively.
But West Brom's finances are still lit up with red lights.
The main reason is that the football club is too expensive, the player salary is calculated according to the minimum salary of 30,000 weeks, and the team needs to spend nearly 30 million pounds a year.
The £100 million revenue reduces the player's salary, plus the team's game travel expenses + reinforcements + stadium maintenance + reserve team and youth team, etc. A series of expenses have been left, and the club's financial statements will be loss-making in the case of overruns.
- (2) The small club that cannot retain the stars has not achieved satisfactory results
Financial considerations aside, small balls will attract big stars.
So the squad that the team can get is basically: veterans who are not willing to retire + European or African 2- and 3rd-tier players + young but potential rookies in the future.
But such a lineup is also unstable, whether it is the 2nd and 3rd line players who are in better shape or the potential rookies who have ushered in a big explosion, they may be poached or the club will take the initiative to sell in order to liquidate.
If the new players re-bought, if there is a slight difference, not only will the team's performance be affected, but also the financial situation will be affected immediately.
Moving a transfer fee of a few million euros is already a relatively large burden for small clubs.
There is no hope of upgrading again, and Lai Guochuan, who wants to sell West Brom with a price of 200 million, faces an embarrassing situation that no one asks
The West Brom team in the Premier League was worth £160 million in 2016, and six years later, the West Brom team in the Championship suffered a significant depreciation.
In the middle of 2021, seeing that the club is about to be relegated again, under the pressure of the club's financial loss, in order to avoid suffering greater losses, Lai Guochuan once listed a price of 200 million pounds to sell shares urgently, but did not receive a satisfactory offer, and the transfer of the team could not be completed.
After the 21/22 season is hopeless, Lai Guochuan's current price for West Brom is 130 million pounds, but considering the current environment, he may be forced to choose to cut the price to 105 million pounds.
If it ends up trading for £105 million, it would mean that Lai guochuan bought West Brom for 6 years for £175 million, not only did not gain anything, but also lost nearly £150 million (1.2 billion yuan).
I have to sigh that the "Golden Dollar Era" football can't be played without burning money.
Gao Jisheng, a Chinese businessman who bought an 80% stake in Southampton for £210 million in 2017, sold his shares for £100 million in 2022.
If Lai Guochuan eventually withdraws from the English football market, then only Guo Guangchang's Wolves will be left in the Chinese team in the Premier League.
Why can Guo Guangchang play well? In addition to the profitable business model, unlike Gao Jisheng and Lai Guochuan, who directly spent more than 100 million pounds to buy Premier League teams, Guo Guangchang only spent 45 million pounds to buy Wolves in the Championship.