Birmingham City's plans for a City of Birmingham Stadium remain on the agenda. Since the collapse of the original proposal for a £250m complex in Nechells, which would have been funded by American gaming giant Las Vegas Sands in return for a super casino site, Blues have maintained dialogue with the City Council. Managing director Karren Brady said that Blues had entered into a memorandum of understanding with City chiefs to build a state of the art facility on part of the Birmingham Wheels site. One of the aspirations of the City Council is to host international events, perhaps the Commonwealth Games. Brady said that environmental issues at the brownfield site could be a major problem. Blues have appointed a 'master planner' which is somebody to work over the land at the Wheels site to find out whether they could get the stadium and enough buildings around it to generate enough money to build.
The Birmingham board wants to build the stadium without incurring massive debts on the football club. The biggest obstacle is the contamination of the land. Quite a lot of money is being spent investigating what the contamination is and whether removing it puts the whole project under threat. When the club were working with Las Vegas Sands they estimated that the cost would be £100m which would be beyond what the club could afford. The club expects to know in 12 months whether it will move from St.Andrew's to a new stadium. It would then take another five years to complete the project. The club would put in about £20m, but private investment would be needed for the rest. That in turn depends on planning permission being given for other uses on the land, but the City Council seems to be taking a supportive line.
City owners David Sullivan and the Gold brothers have increased their stake in the club so that they now own almost 50 per cent of the shares. Sullivan paid £574,000 to increase his stake to 24.45 per cent and the Golds between them spent £895,000 to increase their holding to 25.06 per cent. David Gold has individually purchased an additional number of shares for £43,696. It is another blow to the club's largest individual shareholder, Carson Yeung, the Hong Kong businessman who bought a 29.9 per cent stake last summer in what was supposed to be a prelude to a takeover but then ran into difficulties. Yeung has attempted to have former Liverpool player Steve McManaman and former Crystal Palace defender Fan Zhiyi voted on to the board as his representatives. Blues supremo Karren Brady advised shareholders to veto the move.
| 
