West Bromwich Albion journalist Joe Masi has been sharing his thoughts on current Baggies owner Guochuan Lai and his stance with the Midlands club.
This comes after Masi made an appearance on a recent episode of Baggies Broadcast where he discussed a variety of topics concerning West Brom.
Lai has been at the forefront of things at Albion lately, with the owner reportedly vetoing a move to install Chris Wilder as manager.
On the subject of Lai and his current stance with the club in from a financial perspective, Masi had this to say on the matter.
He said: “Our understanding is he bought the club to flip it.
“He bought it because they’ve been in the Premier League for eight years there and they seemed an established Premier League side, and our understanding is that he bought that club on the basis that three/four years later, he will be able to sell it for a lot more money.
“Obviously, that hasn’t been able to happen, relegation has seen the value decrease, but he’s not in this for Albion, he’s in this to make money for himself.”
Lai and his Chinese investment group took over West Brom from former chairman Jeremy Peace back in 2016.
TIF Thoughts on Joe Masi’s comments on Guochuan Lai…
With Lai reportedly having three offers to sell the club back in January that supposedly didn’t meet his desired valuation of £200 million, this suggests to us that instead of accepting any offer for the club, he’s doing what he believes is the right thing from a business perspective by trying to get as much of the money back that he put into the club, which is probably why Masi thinks he has no interest in WBA from a football perspective.
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However, with the club now back in the Championship after being relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2020/21 campaign, this would surely make it less likely for Lai to be offered a fee close to his reported valuation, therefore making any potential takeover unlikely.
And by apparently refusing to sanction a move for Wilder, who was the ‘unanimous choice of the board‘, it very much seems as though he only has his own interests at heart.
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