It’s been three days since Paul Richardson and Maxi Lopez turned up at St Andrew’s to tell the world that they’d exchanged contracts and were to become the next owners of Birmingham City. While there has been fairly extensive reporting of their meetings with club officials, the silence from Hong Kong has continued.
The Birmingham City takeover rollercoaster kicked back into gear on Tuesday in spectacular fashion, with Paul Richardson and Maxi Lopez holding a fairly impromptu press conference in the St Andrew’s Kop car park to confirm that they were in the final stages of completing a takeover.
It’s been almost a week now since Laurence Bassini went on TalkSPORT to talk about buying Birmingham City, and I think I’ve only just caught my breath from it. I’ve said all along that Bassini is a fantasist who shouldn’t be entertained when it comes to buying a football club, but even I didn’t expect him to blow up so spectacularly live on national radio.
It’s now been over eight weeks since Blues fans were told in a Birmingham Mail / Mirror report that the takeover was “close”. Despite being told in an announcement to the HKSE three weeks ago that Vong Pech had agreed to sell his share and a “deadline” being given by Bassini of June 30, as Blues fans we still await any official confirmation that any deal has been done.
As the Laurence Bassini and Keith Harris-led takeover “deadline” of June 30 came and went, Birmingham Sports Holdings did in fact make an announcement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. However, rather than inform shareholders that it was selling the club, the only news BSH had the was departure of director Hsiao Charng Geng.
