August wasn’t only an exciting month in Birmingham – for shareholders of the holding company in Hong Kong it’s been interesting too, with shares rocketing up by 50% in the last three days of last week. Are HK investors excited by potential promotion?
Harry Redknapp said he wanted new players, and he got them. Deadline day brought the busiest transfer window in Blues history to a conclusion. Four players came in and five left in the last 24 hours to make a total of 28 players going in or out of St Andrews over the summer months.
Harry Redknapp was not a happy man after Birmingham City collapsed to a 2-0 defeat at home to Reading in the Championship. The result left Blues lying in 20th heading into the first international break of the season, with only four days left in the transfer window to bring in new players.
During the current lull in activity in Birmingham and Hong Kong, I wanted to add a quick post to talk about plans for my writing for 2018 – in particular, details of a potential sequel to “Haircuts and League Cups”.
It’s been no secret that the government of the People’s Republic of China have targeted companies in an attempt to scale back their investment activities abroad. News has broken in the last day that this has now been somewhat clarified, with investment in sports clubs including football in the “restricted” category.
Birmingham City faced transfer heartache on Wednesday when news emerged that Ogenyi Onazi was refused a work permit and thus could not sign for the club. While Onazi captained Nigeria in their last competitive game and has played many internationals for them, he was hamstrung by Nigeria’s poor FIFA ranking over the past two years.
An opening day defeat to Ipswich left Birmingham City manager Harry Redknapp disappointed with the result – and cursing the paucity of strikers he currently has to choose from. He told Radio WM that “it hadn’t been for lack of trying” that they had not signed a striker, but that he “was not prepared to pay” huge sums for players.
In the aftermath of Birmingham City’s friendly defeat against Swansea, Harry Redknapp spoke of a need to finalise transfers if the squad is to compete for promotion. Birmingham City have added just four players this summer with one of those – Craig Gardner – already on loan previously.
Birmingham Sports Holdings have confirmed yesterday that there will be a delay before they hold an EGM to approve a proposed deal for the company to invest in a Cambodian company.
Birmingham City reported on their official website that the Academy’s u14 team have gone to China to play in the Beijing International Schools Cup. The website confirms that the Board of Directors of the club have arranged the trip which “signifies the intent of the of the Board and the Club owners to promote and showcase the Academy programme”.
