Fosun and Uncle Jorge by Reuters

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

Interesting and disturbing ....

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

The Portuguese super-agent Jorge Mendes joined forces with investors from Shanghai and planned to cash in on buying and selling athletes, documents show.

www.reuters.com

View attachment 18092

 

[Aylesbury Wolf]

Interesting and disturbing ....

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

The Portuguese super-agent Jorge Mendes joined forces with investors from Shanghai and planned to cash in on buying and selling athletes, documents show.

www.reuters.com

View attachment 18092

That article is over a year old.......

Nothing there that’s not already been reported or alleged before.

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

That article is over a year old.......

Nothing there that’s not already been reported or alleged before.

Have we discussed it on here??

 

[Monketron]

Have we discussed it on here??

Yes it was mentioned a few years ago, I think there were multiple threads but this one is the one search popped up.

Football Leaks - Wolves, Fosun & Mendes

I know what some of you will be thinking. "Not this again". I came across this Portuguese article about Wolves, Fosun and Mendes being mentioned in the recent Football Leaks revelations. I thought I'd post a link in case anyone is interested. Hopefully, you'll be able to automatically...

www.molineuxmix.co.uk

 

[rincewind]

Have we discussed it on here??

It has and to be honest it's not clear what Mendes/Fosun are doing that is so different to any other club who buy and sell players. Every club (and agent) hope that they profit from dealings , either directly from profits or indirectly from improved performance.
As long as its not to the detriment of the club and is legal we are doing what others do. Whether it's morally right is another issue and would be part of a review of the whole transfer system.
I suspect that a lot lot of the criticism of this approach is that if you're smart, as we have been, you can cut the advantage the bigger clubs have fairly quickly. For instance few, outside of Man Utd fans, complain about the Glazers removing millions from their club every year. They use a different mechanism but it's the same result.

 

[waggys left foot]

Interesting and disturbing ....

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

The Portuguese super-agent Jorge Mendes joined forces with investors from Shanghai and planned to cash in on buying and selling athletes, documents show.

www.reuters.com

View attachment 18092

Wolves fans won't give two figs as long as the team continues to improve .The endless refusals to comment doesn't surprise me but it fuels suspicion.

The football and tax authorities are slowly pushing for more transparency.

The apparent overpaying for Silva and the cheapness of Doherty has been the first sign of problems .

Owners are in it for glory and /or profit.

The yanks are in it for profit ,Abramovitch and Abu Dhabi are in it for glory .

Fosun are in it for Fosun,Mendes is in it for Mendes and Nuno is a perfect accomplice for both.

We had a sniff at the CL last season -I hope we can do better this season but not sure we can .UTW.

 

[Loojay]

Interesting article nonetheless. As the premier club in the agency, it essentially makes us King of the Mendes network. So as far as I'm concerned it's good news

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

The overwhelming conclusion is that the ‘project’ amounts to a modern version of the slave trade!

Profit on player dealings is the currency! In that case, for all the relative success we’ve had, in the long term we are never going to be certain as to when another brick will be taken out of the wall!!

 

[wanderer24]

If anyone makes an investment in third party rights in a young player they are taking a risk. For every player that makes it, there will be at least 3-4 who don’t fulfill their potential. Yet every club and player financially benefits from that investment.
I wish football as a whole would focus their minds on mismanagement of money. All the clubs and owners that spend money they don’t have, surely that should be the priority.

 

[sedgwolf1980]

The overwhelming conclusion is that the ‘project’ amounts to a modern version of the slave trade!

Profit on player dealings is the currency! In that case, for all the relative success we’ve had, in the long term we are never going to be certain as to when another brick will be taken out of the wall!!

The only time in our modern history when the club was so reliant on just one ‘brick’ was when Mick was in charge and as soon as he left his slaves who ran up and down for him like Duracell bunnies on speed suddenly ran out of power.

 

[Black Country Wanderer]

The overwhelming conclusion is that the ‘project’ amounts to a modern version of the slave trade!

Profit on player dealings is the currency! In that case, for all the relative success we’ve had, in the long term we are never going to be certain as to when another brick will be taken out of the wall!!

I wish i was a slave then,50-100k a week for kicking a ball around,live in a big house,girls on tap,its a hard life lol

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

I wish i was a slave then,50-100k a week for kicking a ball around,live in a big house,girls on tap,its a hard life lol

The aim is profit on people NOT football success

 

[Pagey]

Been discussed before.

**** me I wish we were **** again.

 

[Black Country Wanderer]

The aim is profit on people NOT football success

So Mendes and Fosun have not bought us success since they have been here?

 

[rincewind]

So Mendes and Fosun have not bought us success since they have been here?

See this is the problem with the idea Fosun can make big money at this. You buy Jota and sell for a £30 million profit but have to spend much of the profit to replace him, with the risk that the replacement loses value. You've got to be really good to keep this ticking over.
Fosun have made a big paper profit on Wolves but the only way to realise that is by selling the club or the players and not replacing them.
For Mendes it's good money, for Fosun it seems a risk for what is relatively little return for them.

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

So Mendes and Fosun have not bought us success since they have been here?

Better re read my post!! Success?

The point is a club should be built with the aim of achieving success in the long term. The article strongly suggests that that is not the intention of the project when many of us were led to believe that it was!!

 

[Deleted member 8913]

There is this recurring theme about unfair advantage or conflict of interest . However while Fosun has an interest in gestifute , the FA has cleared that the agent has no interest or influence over Wolves and so there is no conflict of interest....

agent gets rich chinese to buy a club, agent helps them get players , agent gets well paid...no problem

agent helps players get good contracts ...agent gets paid ...no problem.

the jota transactions Since he was 17...can jota, Liverpool, wolves , Porto , Mendes complain? About what? Lots of money in football all derived from fans ultimately...have they been robbed?

this successful relationship has attracted much jealous criticism but really nothing inexplicable is happening ..the only downside for wolves is that Mendes will want to sell on successful players and use wolves as a showroom.

 

[Pagey]

Better re read my post!! Success?

The point is a club should be built with the aim of achieving success in the long term. The article strongly suggests that that is not the intention of the project when many of us were led to believe that it was!!

Who knows what the project is? who knows what Fosuns intentions are?
Who knows when they will cash out?

So far they have backed their words with big investment on and off the pitch, they have done some very good work in the community (ppe etc) and I'm delighted with them.

Will it last, who knows?

But fosun are an investment group, they know their business, they will one day want a return on that. If it means we continue to progress then I don't mind them taking their cut.

 

[Black Country Wanderer]

Better re read my post!! Success?

The point is a club should be built with the aim of achieving success in the long term. The article strongly suggests that that is not the intention of the project when many of us were led to believe that it was!!

This article was published almost 2 years ago,a similar article published a year earlier,several since that,none have proven any wrong doing,two seperate investigations by the authorities have proven no wrong doing
So if your point is there is something rotten in the state of Wolverhampton then its wrong
If your point is that an investment company and an agent are making money then wow surprise surprise
If your point is that Fosun have no ambition in furthering Wolves as a team again your wrong,its in their best interests that Wolves become as successful as they possibly can,more success means better transfer fees for players,simple
If your point is that we buy and sell players for profit, then again,surprise surprise,every club on earth does that
As long as we are progressing,as i have no doubt we are,i cannot see where your going with this?

 

[WolfInSheep'sClothing]

Better re read my post!! Success?

The point is a club should be built with the aim of achieving success in the long term. The article strongly suggests that that is not the intention of the project when many of us were led to believe that it was!!

The article doesn't really suggest anything. It's just a "agency's are bad" hatchet job based on stuff that is already out there.
And yeah, we might have been bought to make a profit on player sales. But we are only going to do that if the players we buy are good and we give them a chance.

 

[Timberwolf]

Interesting and disturbing ....

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

How a soccer agent and Chinese billionaire aimed to trade in players

The Portuguese super-agent Jorge Mendes joined forces with investors from Shanghai and planned to cash in on buying and selling athletes, documents show.

www.reuters.com

View attachment 18092

Ah ffs!!!! Why are some Wolves fans so desperate to find negativity? How many more times are these stone cold coals going to be raked over...?

 

[Stoichkov]

The aim is profit on people NOT football success

former doesn't come without the latter

 

[lycophilos]

It is apparent that some people on this forum seem to have little idea about the actual importance of Wolves in the FOSUN business empire, and hence will continue to re-post articles such as the one in the OP, even though it dates from years ago, and has already been discussed on this forum several times.

In the context of Fosun's financial and business affairs, Wolves are a tiny proportion of the whole. Fosun have stakes in businesses which completely dwarf Wolves into insignificance, if money and profit were the main issue. Of course, they would not like it if Wolves made massive losses, and love it if the club made profits, but the importance of Wolves to Fosun is clearly not primarily monetary.

For, as the prominence given to Wolves, and the use of the Wolves colours, at FOSUN general meetings shows, the importance of Wolves to Fosun is symbolic. In that respect, Wolves are immensely important to Fosun. They are an advertising symbol to the world that Fosun are associated with success in one of the areas which has the most interest and impact among ordinary people throughout the world - elite sport. Hence SUCCESS has to be the main aim of Wolves for Fosun. There's no point in having a symbolic flagship which is a rotting hulk.

This symbolic importance of Wolves will continue unless and until Gao and the other top guys at Fosun lose interest in the "project". Which there are no signs of happening at the moment. And even if that ever happens, if they are wise they will try to sell Wolves to a business/group/person who is interested in keeping the project going. They wouldn't want the bad publicity which would ensue if they sold the club to someone who would use Wolves as purely a money making exercise. Which would in any case be very difficult unless Wolves had by then become as rich and profitable as Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal are. Which means of course that Wolves would have become, through success on the football field, one of the "Big [6,7,8...]".

 

[Deleted member 8913]

Fosun aim is to take wolves from championship to champions league and sell On at a vast profit when they can no longer improve the value.

To achieve this they need success and a huge brand on the world stage with more fans in Beijing and on tv than in Wolverhampton.

just wish someone had done that before.

 

[Aylesbury Wolf]

Have we discussed it on here??

Yes!

 

[Fenrir_]

The aim is profit on people NOT football success

While the money agents take out of the game is obscene, you have to remember they get better deals for their clients, effectively give their clients power against their employers if needed and facilitate the kind of moves that their clients want. Their clients benefit massively from their involvement

They profit off doing a job for their client, after all, players are able to switch representatives if they wish

 

[Glow69]

Long live fosun

 

[Black Country Wanderer]

Long live fosun

Amen close thread lol

 

[lostwolf]

Who knows what the project is? who knows what Fosuns intentions are?
Who knows when they will cash out?

So far they have backed their words with big investment on and off the pitch, they have done some very good work in the community (ppe etc) and I'm delighted with them.

Will it last, who knows?

But fosun are an investment group, they know their business, they will one day want a return on that. If it means we continue to progress then I don't mind them taking their cut.

The complicating factor here though is that Fosun are not simply an investment group, they are that but do so operating under the aegis and influence of their autocratic ultimate rulers the CCP.

Are the complaints about Mendes (please don't call him uncle, it's creepy as ****) legitimate? No: we've simply played a corrupt and morally vacuous system intelligently, as most clubs try but fail to do, hence their fans' jealousy. Is what we're doing really okay, in an objectively moral sense... I'm not so sure. But tbh I'm not bothered. It's all *******s.

Personally, I don't like our Chinese masters: the English game went to **** a long time ago and I'd love it if the whole system came crashing down. And I'm no anarchist, nihilist or weirdo. Just someone who quite likes club and country.

 

[Rhoswolf]

Sad that this gets dragged up again. We as simple fans have no idea of what goes on at Board level, just need to go back to the welcome the Bhattis received as they had Dougan as their public face. All I know is that I prefer watching the current team than the one owned by Steve the builder with Mick as manager and Karl as captain.

 

[Dr Wolfenstein]

Have we discussed it on here??

Definitely two threads in September & one in January-just search ''reuters' on this forum.

 

[Stratman Wolves]

Have we discussed it on here??

I brought it up in reference to the sale of Jota and why more will be sold eventually.

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

I brought it up in reference to the sale of Jota and why more will be sold eventually.

That’s the problem for me.

Nuno protested that we weren’t a stepping stone .... an article like this one suggests otherwise! The emphasis is on the player’s profitability rather than the long term success of the club itself!

That’s not my view, I’m merely interpreting what’s in the Reuter’s piece!

 

[Pagey]

That’s the problem for me.

Nuno protested that we weren’t a stepping stone .... an article like this one suggests otherwise! The emphasis is on the player’s profitability rather than the long term success of the club itself!

That’s not my view, I’m merely interpreting what’s in the Reuter’s piece!

In a way every club is a stepping stone, there's probably only 2 European clubs who can say they're not. Even then Barcelona couldn't keep Neymar.

 

[Monketron]

I wouldn't worry. If they really want to make money trading players they need to trade the best in the world, that can only be good for this club.

 

[wwbug]

The overwhelming conclusion is that the ‘project’ amounts to a modern version of the slave trade!

Profit on player dealings is the currency! In that case, for all the relative success we’ve had, in the long term we are never going to be certain as to when another brick will be taken out of the wall!!

Surely Fosun are making money out of the agency system that has existed in English football for decades.
I don’t see any losers , just the agents that would have sold these players instead of Mendes .
Football attracts a lot of awful men ( and may be some women) right down to the lower leagues. At least we have a FIFA top agent and a respectable Chinese company behind us. Slave trade is rather emotive . The football players themselves would be useless without agents . Can you imagine a young working class lad in a board room with the owner of a football club, doing his own deal.

 

[Wednesbury Wolf]

The complicating factor here though is that Fosun are not simply an investment group, they are that but do so operating under the aegis and influence of their autocratic ultimate rulers the CCP.

Are the complaints about Mendes (please don't call him uncle, it's creepy as ****) legitimate? No: we've simply played a corrupt and morally vacuous system intelligently, as most clubs try but fail to do, hence their fans' jealousy. Is what we're doing really okay, in an objectively moral sense... I'm not so sure. But tbh I'm not bothered. It's all *******s.

Personally, I don't like our Chinese masters: the English game went to **** a long time ago and I'd love it if the whole system came crashing down. And I'm no anarchist, nihilist or weirdo. Just someone who quite likes club and country.

Wow that will not go down well on here although I understand it.

 

[BlahBlah]

The football players themselves would be useless without agents . Can you imagine a young working class lad in a board room with the owner of a football club, doing his own deal.

I remember an accountant mate of mine talking about doing the accounts of an ex-Wolves striker who'd been sucked into a long personal fiannce HP deal on a new car at a abnormally high interest rate, when he could have bought the car outright with 3 weeks wages but had no real comprehension of the contract he'd signed or how he was needlessly losing money.
These players are not stupid, but they are possibly ignorant in that they never got much of an education to know how to manage their affairs when they suddenly get given lots of money, let alone understand compound interest and how people will try and rip them off.
Look at the high-profile players who chucked vast amounts of money into Michael McIndoe's obvious ponzi scheme and lost fortunes.

It's good to see that football clubs these days, and Wolves/Fosun especially with the schoolboy players and the deals with very good local schools to place players, and the role of Education and Welfare via the Academy, take far more interest in education and life management support to footballers beyond their ability to kick a ball and run up and down. Even if these youngsters don't make it as professionals they have the skills and mindset to go and find something else useful and productive to do one day.

Mendes has often said his influence only extends to the purchase contracts he makes and he has no knowledge of players' personal affairs (usually when defending himself against knowledge of income tax fraud in Spain), but you'd expect him to be putting players in contact with recommended financial advisors so they can manage and invest these huge amounts of income for them.

 

[WickedWolfie]

The complicating factor here though is that Fosun are not simply an investment group, they are that but do so operating under the aegis and influence of their autocratic ultimate rulers the CCP.

Are the complaints about Mendes (please don't call him uncle, it's creepy as ****) legitimate? No: we've simply played a corrupt and morally vacuous system intelligently, as most clubs try but fail to do, hence their fans' jealousy. Is what we're doing really okay, in an objectively moral sense... I'm not so sure. But tbh I'm not bothered. It's all *******s.

Personally, I don't like our Chinese masters: the English game went to **** a long time ago and I'd love it if the whole system came crashing down. And I'm no anarchist, nihilist or weirdo. Just someone who quite likes club and country.

Everyone is entitled to take a political view. Certainly if you knew what l've done for most of my career you could hazard a guess at my views on the CCP (clue: it isn't positive). However, thus far Fosun ownership has only been positive for the club and there has been zero evidence of any CCP intervention. Fosun have also done much good in Wolvo.

There are many foreign owners who would have been much worse. The Yanks at ManUre and Arsenal have bled the clubs and milked the fans. The Yanks at Liverpool haven't done that thus far but... The Arabs at Man City are part of a political and leadership setup with serious human rights issues. The Thais at Leicester seem relatively benign.

Of course we could have "good" British owners like Newcastle and Spuds... No hint of bleeding the fans there...... lol

 

[BlahBlah]

Can you imagine a young working class lad in a board room with the owner of a football club, doing his own deal.

This lad seems have his head screwed on.....

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