Birmingham will have 1.3billion Chinese fans says new chairman Vico Hui
Published 21:37 31/10/09 By By Ralph Ellis
Birmingham chairman Vico Hui claims his club can be bigger – and richer – than Manchester City.
The business brain behind Carson Yeung’s takeover at St Andrews has unveiled his plan to turn the 1.3billion people who live in China into Birmingham fans.
Hui said: “We have the Chinese people, Manchester City’s owners have their oil.
“I would not swap our people for their oil.”
The clubs, who clash today, are currently poles apart in wealth.
But Hui, a 43-year-old investment manager who has also been involved in developing new power sources for China, believes in the long term they could be trading places.
He said: “You can look at other billionaire owners of football clubs, you have Russians and Arabs, but I think there is not the same interest in their homeland that there will be for us in this situation.
“It is quite unique. I don’t think you can quantify it exactly but we will be working 24 hours a day – well, maybe 23 because everybody has to sleep – to make it happen.
“We are in uncharted territory but it is exciting.
“I understand questions about how anybody can compete in a League where Manchester City have so much money, but what I am saying is that we have a privilege compared to them.
“We are Chinese people, we have very good connections in China, China is a huge market and it’s a very strange market. You must have good communication, and you have to know the way how to do the business.
“That’s our privilege. We know the way, how to contact people, how to communicate with the people, and with the government.
“Other Premier League clubs may look at the interest in football in China but they don’t have this kind of communications. China is a huge market.”
The potential for riches to be mined in the world’s most populated country has already been proved by basketball, where the NBA has developed a 1.5billion-dollar business in the space of a few years.
That’s the model on which Birmingham’s new owners hope to build. They insist plans for an investment of £40million on players in January, with the same again next summer, can return a profit.
Hui added: “Why are we doing this? First it is for investment. I want to make a profit for the company.
“The second level is we like football, we have a passion, and we want Birmingham to be an international club and bring the message to China.
“We believe we have the way to unlock the passion for the game in a way that nobody else can do.”
