Birmingham City’s troubles have gone on for a long time with it being suggested that the club was effectively being controlled from the majority shareholder’s prison cell. It is therefore not a great surprise to learn that the parent company has gone into administration with the various parties seemingly fighting like cats in a sack.
Birmingham City’s troubles have gone on for a long time with it being suggested that the club was effectively being controlled from the majority shareholder’s prison cell. It is therefore not a great surprise to learn that the parent company has gone into administration with the various parties seemingly fighting like cats in a sack.
The Championship club’s parent company, Birmingham International Holdings
Limited (BIHL), blamed “fractious and inharmonious relations within the
management” for the decision. BIHL said it had appointed three receivers from Ernst and Young.
The club said it wished to reassure supporters “most emphatically” that no
winding-up petition had been filed. It is said to be ‘business as usual’ at St. Andrews. The club is, however, understandably concerned about reputational damage and the way the news will play in the media and with supporters.
There seems to be some uncertainty about whether or not the club will be subject to a points deduction. Apparently, the Football League is investigating the matter urgently. Experienced football journalist David Conn gives his view here.
This is a further chapter in the recent unhappy history of football in the West Midlands. The region is very much punching below its weight in football terms. At Villa it is a case of a foreign owner losing interest, at City a case of foreign owners who do not appear to fit and proper persons if in one adopted a broad definition of the term.
One must be careful not to subscribe to a ‘domestic owner good, foreign owner bad’ narrative. There are bad domestic owners and good foreign owners. However, often less is known about foreign owners and the football authorities don’t seem to be interested in probing very deeply or, to be fair, are legally constrained in what they can do.