those were the days
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I fear Wolves's story under FOSUN could play out similarly to Valencia's under Peter Lim, where Mendes and his agency GestiFute have similar influence. Similar to Valencia, player recruitment appears to have been out-sourced to Mendes and the first managerial patsy has been hired.
The Mendes/GestiFute model is built on TPO (banned in the UK) and has served the big clubs in Portugal (Porto, Benfica) well over the last 10-15 years. Through TPO, those clubs can attract and pay for promising players and earn a healthy cut of profits on the major success stories before re-loading cheaply with the next crop of potential talent. However, for this strategy to work for the big Portuguese clubs and GestiFute, Mendes needs an 'out' to be able to shift on the duds or the players who don't quite make it and I reckon that's where Wolves and, albeit higher up the feeding chain, the likes of Valencia, Deportivo La Coruna and Monaco come in.
I suspect too that FOSUN and Jeff Shi (CEO, FOYO) have multiple objectives with Wolves. The stated objective is, of course, to buy a historic club relatively cheaply with potential to add value on promotion, but I'd wager this is relatively small beer and a secondary objective compared to the real prize which is consolidating working relationships with GestiFute as both parties look to expand into the potentially extremely lucrative Chinese domestic football market. FOSUN have invested in GestiFute and FOYO have a strategic partnership in place with GestiFute covering agency services for players and image rights and Jeff Shi will, I'm sure, be smart enough to know thats where the real value of the takeover likely comes from.
The above, of course, doesn't mean the FOSUN takeover will necessarily be bad for Wolves, but it certainly increases its chances. It also means a lot of stuff will happen that looks very odd and will potentially not be in Wolves' interest, but will make more sense viewed through the prism of above.
The Mendes/GestiFute model is built on TPO (banned in the UK) and has served the big clubs in Portugal (Porto, Benfica) well over the last 10-15 years. Through TPO, those clubs can attract and pay for promising players and earn a healthy cut of profits on the major success stories before re-loading cheaply with the next crop of potential talent. However, for this strategy to work for the big Portuguese clubs and GestiFute, Mendes needs an 'out' to be able to shift on the duds or the players who don't quite make it and I reckon that's where Wolves and, albeit higher up the feeding chain, the likes of Valencia, Deportivo La Coruna and Monaco come in.
I suspect too that FOSUN and Jeff Shi (CEO, FOYO) have multiple objectives with Wolves. The stated objective is, of course, to buy a historic club relatively cheaply with potential to add value on promotion, but I'd wager this is relatively small beer and a secondary objective compared to the real prize which is consolidating working relationships with GestiFute as both parties look to expand into the potentially extremely lucrative Chinese domestic football market. FOSUN have invested in GestiFute and FOYO have a strategic partnership in place with GestiFute covering agency services for players and image rights and Jeff Shi will, I'm sure, be smart enough to know thats where the real value of the takeover likely comes from.
The above, of course, doesn't mean the FOSUN takeover will necessarily be bad for Wolves, but it certainly increases its chances. It also means a lot of stuff will happen that looks very odd and will potentially not be in Wolves' interest, but will make more sense viewed through the prism of above.