Birmingham City FC isn’t the only commercial enterprise that has Carson Yeung as largest shareholder. Sing Pao, a daily pro-government Chinese language newspaper in Hong Kong also has Carson Yeung as titular head, via it’s holding company SMI Publishing. Rumours broke today that Sing Pao is also suffering financial difficulties, although unlike Blues they can’t blame it on relegation from the Premiership.

I must stress that this news has come via a Hong Kong media outlet called “Apple Daily“, which makes it’s name printing salacious gossip and is a major rival of Sing Pao. As such, it has to be said from the outset that they may have an agenda against Carson and Sing Pao, and such there may be inherent bias in the article.

The article states that Sing Pao is going to have to cut it’s staff by half in a move designed to reduce overheads and keep the paper running on a sound financial basis. However, Wei Jiguang, who is editor-in-chief of Sing Pao, whilst confirming that there may be redundancies has denied that the staff cuts will be as severe as being reported.

The reason this is important to Blues is that Sing Pao is like BCFC; whilst it does make money as a business it is kept on an even keel by cash injections from Carson. If Sing Pao isn’t recieving these cash injections any more, then they’re going to be in financial hot water, like Blues will be. This is the first possible evidence I have seen that the flow of money from Carson may be drying up.

I really should say that right now this is just rumour from Hong Kong; it’s not been reported by any other newspapers and should be treated with an ounce of scepticism. However, it’s also something that is worthy of having an eye kept on; should Sing Pao indeed make the swingeing cuts that Apple Daily is alleging, then difficult questions will need to be asked of the Blues board regarding Carson’s continued backing of BCFC.

I’m hopeful myself that this isn’t much more than a rival trying to kick Carson whilst he is down, but I’m also fearful this could be the first broadside in a battle to smear Carson with as much crap as possible – which could have a negative affect on BCFC even if not true. As ever, as more comes through, I’ll keep the blog updated

Tags: Carson Yeung, China, HK