Birmingham City FC owner Carson Yeung in happier times

Birmingham City FC may not be a well-known team for most people in China, but most should know the name Carson Yeung(楊家誠). The Hong Kong businessman has been in the headlines for the past few years as he attempted to purchase the Midlands club back in 2007 followed by his successful acquisition in 2009. The former barber became another name in the slew of foreigners who have bought into English football clubs. Now, Yeung is back in the news for reasons not dealing with football.

The executive director of Birmingham International Holdings is awaiting trail for alleged money laundering from 2001-2007. This is a very serious charge that Yeung has repeatedly denied through the media. If he is found guilty he could face up to more than a decade in prison.

Birmingham City's future is in the balance with Carson Yeung awaiting trial

With Yeung’s legal troubles now public, one of the big questions concerning the future of the English Championships side is whether it can survive while its chairman is holed up in Hong Kong. Reports have come out in the English media that the Carling Cup holders are now strapped for cash and may have to sell some of their top players in order to stay afloat. In addition, due the chairman’s arrest, all financial accounts have been frozen and the club’s stock market listing has been suspended until there is final verdict in his trial.

While Blues manager Chris Houghton is trying his best to keep players and supporters attention on football, it’s Yeung that still remains the center of attention in what could be a long drawn out legal case in the Hong Kong courts. Each day that he is talked about in the media it takes away from what the club is trying to do on the pitch as they try to return to the Premier League at the first crack and make a decent run in the Europa League.

With the club in disarray and uncertain as to what will happen with them in the future, the former Hong Kong Rangers chairman tried in vain to make a trip to England to allay the fears of the City faithful, only for a judge to reject his request.

So, now that Yeung in no way can reassure those remotely linked with the club about its stability, what can he do? Well, he can let junior have a major role in the club’s affairs.

Additional articles

• Carson Yeung’s legal troubles cast cloud over Birmingham City
• Carson Yeung: ‘I’ll bring China’s finest to Birmingham’
• Birmingham City Carson Yeung Your Shout special: The fans have their say

Photos

Poker Knave

Birmingham City Football Club

Fernando Torres of Liverpool beats Didier Zokora of Tottenham Hotspur

So the boycott worked.

A few days to the kick-off of this season’s English Premier League, we’ve got some good news for football fans in China. Looks like WinTV, the Guangdong-based pay-sports channel, is looking to sell broadcasting rights to as many local TV stations as possible, as keeping it will neither do no good to themselves nor to the exposure of EPL.

The company so far has snatched deals with Guangdong TV, Jilin TV, Zhengzhou TV and SMG Shanghai, meaning that EPL will be back for free in Guangdong, Jilin, Henan Provinces and Shanghai. It appears WinTV is currently in talks with several other channels including Beijing TV. Guangdong, Jilin and Zhengzhou will air one game a week while Shanghai to broadcast four matches. Earlier this month, China Youth Media announced that they’ll broadcast this season’s EPL to China’s 30 million plus colleage students via Kooboo, a video-sharing website, as part of a licensing agreement between them and WinTV.

Update 1 –  Sina, a major Chinese web portal, announced they’ll broadcast live streaming video of all 380 matches of this season’s EPL for free. Like Shanghai,  Jiangsu TV will also air four matches a week.

Update 2 – Tencent Inc. announced that they’ll stream live video of all the matches of Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man City on QQ.com, the company’s Chinese portal site.

Update 3 – Beijing TV and Heilongjiang TV will start broadcasting from September 26.

Links and Sources:

• Malcolm Moore: Why isn’t someone selling football to the Chinese?
• New Culture via NetEase: Watch EPL for free (Chinese)
• Nanfang Daily via Sohu: EPL back to Guangdong TV (Chinese)

Previously：

• Chinese to Enjoy English Premier League for Free?
• How China’s Transfer Rules Made Footballers Untransferable

Photo credit: FAPL

“My contract with Charlton has already finished, and I should move to another club next season. Hope that I can get back to the Premier League as it’s more competitive and enthralling,” Zheng is quoted as saying by Titan Sports. “I feel excited when I walk into the Stadium when in the Premiership, which is something that League Championship can’t deliver.”

Zheng, 28, landed in the Valley from Shandong Luneng in 2007 when Charlton Athletic was in Premiership. With the Addicks regelated to League One, Zizi seems determined to further his career somewhere else.

Source:

Titan Sports:  Zheng Zhi only considers Premiership move (Chinese)

Zheng Zhi’s blog

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Too bad that they won’t play in the Mainland. But worry not, four EPL teams – Man Utd, Chelsea, Hull City and West Ham United – will come to play for the capital city’s International Football Festival, which will be peaked by an Italian Super Cup match on August 8. Everything sounds so good right now for this football festival, it’s just there’s not many people playing the game.

Previously:

• Beijing to Stage International Football Festival This Summer
• Bird’s Nest to Host Italian Super Cup

Source:

Foxsports:  New sponsorship plans for Liverpool

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China Sports Review previously told you that the Italian Super Cup will be played in Beijing on August 8th, China’s first ever National Fitness Day. Before that, Manchester United, the world champion club, will come to play Beijing Guo’an in July as part of the club’s Asian tour, with date still undecided. It’s reported that Man Utd will also travel to Shandong Province for a friendly with Shandong Luneng, the CSL defending champion.

Also in July, the Barclays Asia Trophy, a friendly four-teams football tournament held in Asia every two years, will finally come to China’s mainland. Three Premiership teams, Totham Hotspurs, Hull City and West Ham United, will compete with Beijing Guo’an for the trophy, beginning from July 28.

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That might be possible from 2010. According to a latest Bloomberg article, some non-media companies may bid for the next 3-year Chinese television broadcasting rights to EPL after the contract runs out with WinTV, a pay-per-view channel run by state-owned Guangdong Provincial Television. And where to watch next? CCTV. Below are some excerpts:

A group of non-media companies may bid for Chinese television rights to English Premier League matches as the world’s richest soccer league tries to gain viewers to build its brand, an official said.

The move follows the failure of the current holder, local pay-per-view television network WinTV, to attract significant subscribers and the reluctance of state broadcaster China Central Television to pay a premium for the rights, Phil Lines, the Premier League’s head of international broadcasting and media operations, said in an interview.

“I have talked to some people who are possibly putting together a consortium of advertisers who would like to buy the product and take it to free to air (on CCTV),” Lines said.

He declined to reveal the companies involved, saying only that they were “world-wide brands” in the sporting goods, soft drinks and alcoholic beverage industries. The contract comes up in 2010. If successful, the bidders would give CCTV the rights in exchange for free advertising during matches, Lines added.

WinTV was reported to have trouble financing at the end of 2008. Song Zheng, its CEO, issued an open letter via Titan Sports, saying the company is determined to win another 3-year of EPL broadcasting rights. Below are our translation:

The Future Broadcasting Rights Will Be Ours

1. We never expect a runaway success in the sector per-per-view TV by broadcasting EPL. When we were preparing and making plans, it’s never just a 3-year plan. Even in Hong Kong, a relatively successful PPV TV market, it took six years for paid EPL games to be accepted. As we’re ready for putting a long-term effort in doing this, so with our preparation in terms of capital.

2. After two years of groping, WinTV, as an innovator of PPV TV in China, has grown a lot in this department. We tried every means to provide more valued products to Chinese football fans, but not force them to pay to watch.

3. We adapt ourselves to meet the current trends. China’s digital television viewers has jumped from 10 ml to 30 ml, and we adapted ourselves to this trend (CSR note: WinTV is a digital channel.) Besides, with the issue of 3G licenses here, we’ll have more opportunities in new media. In terms of the Internet front, we turned to partnership with carriers like China Netcom and China Mobile from only Internet portals. We believe, along with many of these tight partnerships, we have a bright future.

WinTV is determined to acquire another 3-year EPL broadcasting rights.

WinTV of course can’t force fans to pay, what they did was actually cutting the prices. Their whole-year subscription fee was adjusted to RMB 588 in 2008 from RMB 1,888 in 2007. Unfortunately, Chinese football fans now have sort of a anti-WinTV sentiment. In a poll published by Yangtse Evening News (扬子晚报) about whether or not people would welcome WinTV’s enterance in Shanghai a few days ago, 45.72% of all 5687 people said they want free EPL games only, and a impressive 40.13% percent rather not to watch WinTV even they’re offered free games by the channel. These numbers will be far from pleasing to hear for the Premier League big four. Below are David Gill, CEO of Man United’s take on their exposure from the Bloomberg article:

“There has been lessons learned this year in this contract and will be addressed going forward,” Gill said in an interview in Hong Kong earlier this week. “We, along with Chelsea, along with Liverpool, along with Arsenal, have made the point. We must have better exposure.”

Europe’s other top leagues like Italy’s Serie A and La Liga in Spain are broadcast on free television, bringing those matches to far more homes. English clubs would like to reach additional fans, Gill said.

“We would prefer to have more exposure,” Gill said. “The reality is it helps us with our own business goals and other commercial aims.”

But wait a minute. Does the fans’ strong response in the poll look a bit unreasonable? Maybe not if they’re offered some alternatives. “I don’t want to pay them now that there’s free lunch everywhere,” said Mr.Zhao to China Sports Review, “Don’t you think the games are supposed to be free?” Zhao makes RMB 8,000 a month working for a Chinese magazine, a salary could well afford his weekend TV pastime provided by WinTV. But he simply won’t purchase any of their products with p2p games available online. An earlier New York Times article examined this thorn, not just for the Guangdong-based TV channel:

Major League Baseball has perhaps the most advanced online business of the major sports, and offers a season of games streamed online for $79.95, a price that league executives say will come down slightly in 2009. Robert A. Bowman, the chief executive of M.L.B.comsaid that [online] piracy hurt business, but that “it’s embryonic, it’s not widespread, and we have a distinct advantage in that we have a better product.”

Ms. Deutsch, the lawyer at the N.B.A., hosted a gathering recently of executives from other sports leagues — not just in the United States but around the world — at the N.B.A.’s offices in New York City to discuss ways of combating live-game piracy.

“We view it as an international issue,” she said.

That is not just because sports leagues abroad face the same issue, but also because the pirates themselves, the hubs of the peer-to-peer networks that facilitate the illicit streaming of live games, are mostly outside the United States. Often they are in China, where some of the most popular services started as student projects, say league executives who have tracked the digital trail of their pirated games.

Compared with WinTV, CCTV, China’s main TV broadcaster who won big last year for the exclusive broadcasting of the Beijing Games, remained low-key so far. The Chinese public broadcaster has been awarded a major package of UEFA Champions League rights at the end of 2008. Under the terms of the deal, free-to-air channel CCTV 5 will broadcast at least one live match and a highlights programme on every UEFA Champions League matchnight as well as at least one delayed match every matchweek and the UEFA Super Cup. Coverage of the UEFA Champions League on CCTV 5 will be available to over 350 million homes throughout China. In addition, all live matches from the UEFA Champions League will be available on the internet via www.cctv.com and on mobile via the CCTV mobile portal cctvsports.net.

Related Reads:

• Bloomberg：Chinese Battle Over Premier League Soccer Rights
• China Economic Net: Tiansheng wins EPL rights, but loses fans
• New York Times: Online Piracy Menaces Pro Sports
• Titan Sports:  WinTV: The future of EPL rights will belong to us (Chinese)
• Yangtse Evening News: 4o percent of fans won’t watch WinTV even it provide free games (Chinese via Netease)

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