Fosun out?

[Bawtry Wolf]

Do you think it’s right that Leicester fans behind the goal pay £100 odd less than us for season tickets?

Yes or no?

That’s how much Leicester charge as I don’t support Leicester I’m really not bothered. They could charge £1 and I wouldn’t go. Vinny explained the pricing rationale and it seemed reasonable. Charge less on the south bank and someone else is charged more.

 

[Bogota Wolf]

Not exactly true. They stopped the wildly excessive vanity projects that have caused their own football league immense problems, and we've seen in our own country what dodgy owners with murky finances like Yeung and Xia did to clubs like Blues and Villa.
I know Yeung was jailed and is still getting assaulted in Hong Kong through non-payment of debts....and China are really cracking down on corruption in their own country.
As long as there is a social investment to accompany the football side, Fosun have been pretty much left alone to run as a proper business, which they seem to be doing.....they are already hugely investing into China and seem to have a good relationship with the party.

There is the international political issue of China and the UK that must have some effect on thoughts, just as it affects British people's perspectives on China as a country. The bottom line is though, they need to resolve these differences at some point and the UK needs massive partnership investment to make up for economic shortfalls, and China need to sell us stuff to keep themselves going.

With you BlahBlah...
More detail available to those who want to know more about Fosun's careful balancing game can read this from January of this year:

The Chinese flirtation with European football is over

AS the old adage tells us, if something looks too good to be true, it usually is, or words to that effect. China’s appetite for European football clubs and players seems to have dissolved, a fleeti…

gameofthepeople.com

KTF UTW

 

[thommo1984]

Help me understand the motivation for kids in Asia to but Wolves branded clothing in the absence of a connection to a successful on-field identity. I just don’t follow it, and certainly don’t see the Wolves brand being developed as a stand-alone fashion label. We are in la la land if that is the thinking.

Spot on, and it's the same with the record label. If they really think they're going to make any kind of substantial money through that venture then I can't trust a thing that comes out their mouth. It's a nonsense.

 

[steve vena]

Spot on, and it's the same with the record label. If they really think they're going to make any kind of substantial money through that venture then I can't trust a thing that comes out their mouth. It's a nonsense.

What sort of artists are on the record label...if any? Do they advertise it or market it?. What is the point.

 

[Jericho]

Honestly, I don't understand the people who are so accepting of Daddy Shi's vision. Spurs became a top 6 mainstay through performance on the pitch, not through whoring out the "brand" into fashion and eSports.

We'd have more brand exposure from looky looky men selling counterfeit Wolves tops in Gran Canaria than these silly ventures.

Look after the playing side, and that in turn will look after the brand side. All of this sh*te won't count for nothing if we get relegated

 

[Eastyorksyeltz]

Honestly, I don't understand the people who are so accepting of Daddy Shi's vision. Spurs became a top 6 mainstay through performance on the pitch, not through whoring out the "brand" into fashion and eSports.

We'd have more brand exposure from looky looky men selling counterfeit Wolves tops in Gran Canaria than these silly ventures.

Look after the playing side, and that in turn will look after the brand side. All of this sh*te won't count for nothing if we get relegated

Spurs started with and retain a huge geographical and (recent) historical advantage over Wolves.

 

[Jericho]

Spurs started with and retain a huge geographical and (recent) historical advantage over Wolves.

And yet, until the emergence of Gareth Bale and Harry Redknapp managing them, they were as inconsistent as us at present.

Granted my example of Spurs isn't the best control subject.

If we hadn't been successful on the pitch to begin with, the fashion and eSports side of things wouldn't have meant anything. They were products of our successful, impressive return to the PL and our flirt with the Europa League. Now the idea that these ventures are taking priority over the entity that spawned them is a joke.

 

[Eastyorksyeltz]

And yet, until the emergence of Gareth Bale and Harry Redknapp managing them, they were as inconsistent as us at present.

Granted my example of Spurs isn't the best control subject.

If we hadn't been successful on the pitch to begin with, the fashion and eSports side of things wouldn't have meant anything. They were products of our successful, impressive return to the PL and our flirt with the Europa League. Now the idea that these ventures are taking priority over the entity that spawned them is a joke.

Agreed, but that crossover to being a "big club" in the eyes of the media and potential national / international profile, as well as investment potential, is far more difficult for the likes of us. Leicester have proved that and they did have the biggest playing success to build on. It is always going to be a balance, but as a provincial side who did not have the advantage of success in the foundation and consolidation period of the Premier League, we are always going to have to do more than just organically build on our last season's on the pitch performance, just to stay in the running. It's not as simple as expecting seed core investment in the team to bring about a steady and continuing progress. I think astute player trading is just as likely to bring that progress we all want as external "brand" promotion is, but that path is likely to have down as well as ups and is always a gamble on spotting genuine potential and cashing in on it at the right time. Either way there are bound to be times when unpopular decisions have to be made, or unpopular priorities set, for the sake of longer-term progress and there will be times when it will be difficult to see the immediate benefit to the team.

 

[VancouverWolf]

Honestly, I don't understand the people who are so accepting of Daddy Shi's vision. Spurs became a top 6 mainstay through performance on the pitch, not through whoring out the "brand" into fashion and eSports.

We'd have more brand exposure from looky looky men selling counterfeit Wolves tops in Gran Canaria than these silly ventures.

Look after the playing side, and that in turn will look after the brand side. All of this sh*te won't count for nothing if we get relegated

We don‘t have any choice but to accept Shi’s plans for the club. He’s the boss. And like every other club, fans have little or no control over what an owner does.
But we should be happy that Wolves are trying to improve our revenue and planning for the future. But Shi doesn’t have a magic wand to get everything done now…..it’s gonna take time. If a fan is too impatient, then they’re going to be disappointed as there’s no shortcuts.

These ‘silly ventures’ you mention …….

“Esports is a massive deal to the club — and they hope it’ll make them a massive amount of money.”
Jones says there has been “huge growth” in the club’s fanbase in esports, particularly in China where Wolves have six professional teams, one of which has 20 million social media followers.
“There are over 350 million registered users of Fortnite, so to have Wolves skins within the game is a huge benefit for us. We were able to turn that into a tangible product of, sort of, 2,000 replica jerseys, which sold out in 48 hours. So, we are already seeing tangible benefits. Our teams in China, which have over 20 million social followers, are already recording some really good sponsorship revenues, so we are already starting to see those tangible benefits.”

'Ask Wolves' delivers honest answers from Shi on club's ambition

In 'Ask Wolves', the club's most influential figures speak honestly about their ambitions and plans - supporters may want to look away now

theathletic.com

 

[SoCal_Wolf]

Neto signed in 2019 so Jota's sale had nothing to do with his signing Pedro. Same with Podence. He signed in the January window in 2020 and we sold Jota in September 2020. Jota's sale had no impact on either of those two. Probably the best link to what we did with a fair chunk of the Jota sale was us signing Semedo, which we did after Diogo left.

I'd still say Fabio was bought in to replace Raul eventually, its just not happened the way it probably needed it to.

I would add that the fact that Neto was proving to be a starting XI regular and that we had Podence as rotation, then we felt comfortable in selling Jota at that point in time. Very good replacement planning IMO and probably something we were trying to do with Vitinha and Moutinho.

I agree that it's debatable to whether we should have invested in Fabio at the time or not. And we won't know if that gamble will pay off in the future. I'm more positive about Fabio than others and I see real improvement in his physicality and ability to where he is closing the gap between Raul and himself. Another year of development and then we'll have a better idea on whether he will be a bona fide Premier League striker.

Should we have gotten a different striker? Should we have pursued a midfielder or CB instead? Shrug, I guess we'll never know! No use crying over it now--what's done is done. BUT, the club was willing to invest in the future by buying Fabio, so at least it was a sign of intent I would argue.

 

[JohnB]

I would add that the fact that Neto was proving to be a starting XI regular and that we had Podence as rotation, then we felt comfortable in selling Jota at that point in time. Very good replacement planning IMO and probably something we were trying to do with Vitinha and Moutinho.

I agree that it's debatable to whether we should have invested in Fabio at the time or not. And we won't know if that gamble will pay off in the future. I'm more positive about Fabio than others and I see real improvement in his physicality and ability to where he is closing the gap between Raul and himself. Another year of development and then we'll have a better idea on whether he will be a bona fide Premier League striker.

Should we have gotten a different striker? Should we have pursued a midfielder or CB instead? Shrug, I guess we'll never know! No use crying over it now--what's done is done. BUT, the club was willing to invest in the future by buying Fabio, so at least it was a sign of intent I would argue.

Couldn’t agree more - excellent post.

 

[Deleted member 8455jwf]

They’ve reached the next window in which they need to speculate to accumulate as owners.

I’m all for other avenues of income (if the club sees the benefit) but there’s no point in trying to polish a turd. We aren’t a turd yet, of course, but without investment in this window rather than “being creative in the market” (where we jiggle things around and stay mid table) then we will start to turn brown.

It wasn’t so long ago that we were a lot of people’s second team, no big team saw us as an easy game and we really looked as if we could turn the big 6 into a 7. But Fosun pulled the plug and got comfortable so here we are.

We didn't remotely look like we'd turn the big 6 into a big 7. Just delusional

 

[Deleted member 8455jwf]

Honestly, I don't understand the people who are so accepting of Daddy Shi's vision. Spurs became a top 6 mainstay through performance on the pitch, not through whoring out the "brand" into fashion and eSports.

We'd have more brand exposure from looky looky men selling counterfeit Wolves tops in Gran Canaria than these silly ventures.

Look after the playing side, and that in turn will look after the brand side. All of this sh*te won't count for nothing if we get relegated

Spurs have a massive global fanbase and are in London so their megastadium will generate them astonishing amounts.

 

[Ned]

We didn't remotely look like we'd turn the big 6 into a big 7. Just delusional

Yes we did.

 

[HowfenWolf]

Yes we did.

I think hand on heart we all knew that we wouldn't

 

[Summer_Wolf]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1532479321285222413

 

[lostwolf]

According to Shi, we are now a Corporate - Fosun Sports - we have diversified into esports and music. We will get more fans globally who they can monetise.

So, Fosun sells Wolves branded clothing to kids in Asia, and sells advertising attracted by the brand, and maybe some of that money will trickle down to Wolves.

The downside is we have to buy players from China and our coach will be told who plays based on Internet viewing projections. We won't invest in the ground because legacy fans aren't as important.

Does any other team have this business model?

Even if that model (not sure it's quite what we're doing tbf) works it's ****e for us.

 

[Monketron]

Be thankful we don't have owners like this...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1542423297673027584

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

Be thankful we don't have owners like this...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1542423297673027584

I’m thankful they have owners like that.

 

[Chris H]

Be thankful we don't have owners like this...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1542423297673027584

Yep, was just about to post the similar

https://twitter.com/x/status/1542432504174592000

£50k interest on a £5m loan of nearly 2 years, so not much more than 0.5%. Not bad if you can get it!

 

[Monketron]

Yep, was just about to post the similar

https://twitter.com/x/status/1542432504174592000

£50k interest on a £5m loan of nearly 2 years, so not much more than 0.5%. Not bad if you can get it!

If he pays it back at all, apparently this is the 2nd £5m he's taken out and hasn't paid back the first yet.

 

[YouGottaRaulWithIt]

If he pays it back at all, apparently this is the 2nd £5m he's taken out and hasn't paid back the first yet.

Ouch! I know it's the sxxxx, but I hate to see football clubs treated this way.

Does make me wonder where the money for the music, clothing and games ventures came from though.

 

[WalsallWolf]

You cannot make a serious argument for fosun out, and this is from someone who is as critical with there amateur approach to so many aspects the past 2-3 years.

In summer 2017 and summer 2018 they quite literally got everything right. That for me is not a fluke and it gives me hope.

 

[WolfLing]

Be thankful we don't have owners like this...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1542423297673027584

I think this Albion situation demonstrates to all the people speculating that Fosun are taking money out of Wolves, that it can't actually be done without anyone knowing about it. It will always show in the accounts.

Some might not agree with the direction Fosun are taking now, but we were so lucky they picked us and we didn't end up with this Guochuan Lai clown.

 

[Highlandwolf2]

Even if that model (not sure it's quite what we're doing tbf) works it's ****e for us.

Precisely. I await another "legacy fan" comment from the secret society currently in charge at the Molineux....