Peter Pannu
Oh God! More drama at Birmingham City Football Club. Peter Pannu, Carson Yeung apparent right hand man, has been at the center of asking massive amount of money for ‘work’ that he has done. This has all been exposed by The Guardian’s David Conn who rightly question the voracity of the dealings in the article.
Just to remind those who are unfamiliar with Birmingham City Football Club. The club is named after the second biggest city in the UK. It has underachieved for a number of years and is basically in the shade of its biggest rival, Aston Villa. The club then got brought by porn kings who did a good job, but, when the club they always supported was on offer they sold Birmingham City to a former Hong Kong hairdresser, who made millions, doing whatever and the porn kings brought the club which they always supported, and, now West Ham United are going to get a van load of money from the UK government to play in the London Olympic stadium.
Birmingham City bounced around for a while getting relegated and then getting promoted and looked comfortable in mid-table mediocrity and everyone seemed fine, although, some supporters were upset that the club played boring football and the manager Alex McLeish was into ‘anti-football’, ie do not risk anything even when losing.
Yet, for one glorious moment Birmingham City won the League Cup in 2011, which is the 2nd biggest cup competition within the UK, beating Arsenal Football Club. Then within 6 months of doing this they got relegated from the English Premier League, the manager then jumped ship to go to Aston Villa…which many still cannot believe, and, to finish up, the owner Carson Yeung got arrested for money laundering in China and is presently awaiting trail.
Since then the club has been really floundering around like a drunken sailor. They nearly pulled of the impossible and get re-admitted to the premier league when Chris Houghton took over and got the seriously depleted team to have a decent run in Europe and getting into the play offs to get in the premier league. He then went off to Norwich City and Birmingham City is now under the leadership of Lee Clark who seems to be genuine but a bit erratic. In fact you could have got really wealthy from backing Birmingham City to score the first goal and then drawing or get beaten at the end of the match.
Now this complete horror story of stupidity, greed and irregular practices is engulfing the club. The greatest fear is that the club goes into administration which would mean a meltdown, and, the hope from the fans is that someone comes along and buys the club. There has been idea of turning the club into a Barcelona type administration but that would probably be after the club went into administration which means all sorts of grief and penalties.
Something needs to be done and done quickly. Either China put the chairman on trial and get it over with so he can get to grip with the club and hopefully pull it around or it finds another sugar daddy who has ambition and the money to do something constructive.