A CONSORTIUM LED by Chinese investor Chien Lee and including baseball statistics pioneer Billy Beane has taken over Barnsley, the English second-tier club announced on Tuesday.
American investors Paul Conway and Grace Hung are also investing in the Championship club from South Yorkshire in northern England.
Barnsleyโs new patrons take over from Barnsleyโs longstanding owner Patrick Cryne, who in September revealed he has terminal cancer.
โThe club have gained English Football League approval for the change in majority shareholder and our new shareholders have now taken up their positions on the board of Barnsley Football Club,โ Barnsley said in a statement.
Beane found fame by using statistical analysis to find undervalued talent โ a practice known as โsabermetricsโ โ as general manager of baseball team the Oakland Aโs.
His story was told in the 2011 film โMoneyballโ starring Brad Pitt.
Lee, founder and chairman of investment firm NewCity Capital, bought 80% of French club Nice last year.
He sits on the board at the Ligue 1 club alongside Conway, who leads Pacific Media Group along with Hung.
Lee and Conway will become co-chairmen at Barnsley, who spent one season in the Premier League in 1997-98 and currently sit 20th in Englandโs 24-team Championship.
โSimilar to our investment in OGC Nice, we expect to further enhance the academy, playing squad, commercial operations and fan experience of Barnsley Football Club,โ Conway said.
Barnsley has some of the most passionate fans in England and we look forward to meeting many of its supporters in the upcoming weeks.โ
Barnsley are the fourth Championship team to fall under Chinese control after the Midlands trio of Aston Villa, Birmingham City and league leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers.
In the Premier League, Southampton and West Bromwich Albion โ another club from the Midlands โ are Chinese-owned, while Chinese consortium CMC Capital owns a 13% stake in Manchester City.
The42 has just published its first book, Behind The Lines, a collection of some of the yearโs best sports stories. Pick up your copy in Easonโs, or order it here today (โฌ10):
I wonder how itโll go down when heโs celebrating with his Tricolour when they win Division 2, no doubt itโll be accompanied by a rendition of the Famine Song
Itโs fairly simple lads! As a southern Irish catholic u will be HATED by rangers! There is a savage hatred there! I would play for 3,000 easily somewhere else
I know, I support Celtic
How the hell could you play for them
Itโs a job and he is out of contract.
If u were a true Irishman u wouldnโt go near them
Macca, you saying you have never worked for a British company? or bought British products which fund the British economy??? Drop that sh*te about being a โtrue Irishmanโ its a job and hes getting to do what he loves most! Fairly sure you would change your attitude if it was you being offered upwards of 30,000 per week to play!
I wouldnโt play for rangers in a fit! Thatโs what this is about!
I wouldnโt play for rangers in a fit! Thatโs what this is about
Itโs alright, Macca. Somehow I donโt think theyโre looking to sign you.
And I bet if asked neither would any โrealโ Irish player on the Republic of Ireland team
True Irish man would go f*ck off with that. How about being a true Irish man when you have a mortgage to pay and no income coming in. Would you go on the dole or get a decent paying job playing soccer? Grow up.
And ur gonna try tell me this lads only option was rangers? Lmao! u go around and ask most southern Irish people would they play for rangers if they were professional footballs and I know the answer ul get
Are you gonna try tell me otherwise? Do you know him, his situation and his offers? No. 2 offers on the table so lets say one is 7 grand a week at rangers and the other is 3 grand at another place. So youโre saying you would still not go for the sake of 1/3 of a million more? If the money was on the table in front of you?
Only option? Maybe not, best option? Probably.
Not everyone is as backwards in their thinking as you are.
Celtic are a British club..
Itโs a job!!! My dads from Glasgow and even there in the epicentre of it all, you get offered a chance to play professional football, you take it. Now if both are in for you thatโs a different matterโฆ
Who cares!!! The Celtic v Rangers crap is the reason most people canโt stand the old firm derby!! People give others abuse for following Man Utd, Liverpool etc because they have no connection with them. The same argument should hold for these historically bigoted sides!
Celtic fans are possibly the worst soccer fans in the world. I once was told, while wearing an AC Milan shirt, (they were playing Celtic) I should support Celtic because theyโre catholicโฆ I had fun pointing out that Italy is the home of Catholicism, which I did in no uncertain terms!
P.s I have no love for AC Milan, just an old jersey I stole off the lads!
Are you for real, the abuse fans from English clubs give each other is unreal and as you say for no reason at all.
At least Celtic and rangers fans have history and with that some sense of ( misguided as it is ) justification about not liking the other.
As for rangers and Irish players well its Like Michael Jordan playing for the KKKโs basketball team, the club hate who you are, the fans hate who you are and if you want to play for them go ahead thereโs nothing stoping you but donโt expect to be invited to too many supporter club functions. ( unless its a 12 of July one then Iโd Make an excuse and stay at home or wear something flameproof)
Your uneducated-you have 1 conversation with an idiot and you brand the clubs fans as the worlds worst???Celtic and their fans came across as fantastic over the their recent European nights-You donโt have 1 notion as to what your talking about
Iโm uneducated?! I disliked Celtic before this, the vast majority of Celtic fans have never been in Scotland, let alone Celtic park. Plastic IRA wannabes
You are wrong but with you being so small minded and a brain of so little magnitude I am not going to waste my evening in reading your rants, And yes, you come across very uneducated
Whatever helps you sleep at night sweetheart. Anyone who who supports a team defined by religion has no right to call anyone else small minded.
I never mentioned anything about being a supporter-Sweet Dreams
Then why attack me on my opinions?
A lot of people are misunderstood here and think his detractors are complaining about him playing for a club with strong British vibes. Itโs more extreme than that; Rangers are not just a British club, but a strongly anti-Irish club, who sing songs about being โup to our knees in Fenian blood.โ For those who think its silly in this day and age to dislike Rangers for what they stand for, then try and spend half an hour unharmed in a Rangers pub on matchday. Your Irish accent wonโt help you one bit!
Completely agree, itโs not about playing for a pro-British club itโs playing for an anti-Irish club
See how long he lasts with them dirtbird fans
Am I the only one that finds peopleโs following of the Old Firm in this country absolutely bizzarre. They play football in a different country, but the way some people go on about it youโd think it was two sides from Dublin. Sure, thereโs a catholic/protestant rivalry there, which most consider stupid these days anyway, but that in no way makes it an Ireland vs the brits game. If people are so wound up about British people that they consider an Irish man playing for Rangers a national disgrace, they can go live in the Gaeltacht, speak nothing but Irish, buy no British products at all and see where it gets them. People bearing grudges for things that happened before many of their births is ridiculius
And wearing Celtic Jerseyโs to an Irish game. I follow hibs, and despite their Irish links I wouldnโt dream of wearing the Jersey of a Scottish side to an Irish international game. For all their Irish connotations, they are and remain a Scottish club from Glasgow, and itโs laughable that many try to pass them off as our major national side.
100%agree with you
Cork goalkeeper Alan Smith made his Rangers debut last monthโฆ So heโll be the 2nd Irish player in 80 years!
He can play for whoever he likes. Letโs just hope he doesnโt join in with the fans when they start belting out โThe Billy Boysโ.
Well done to him for ignoring the biggoted rubbish that spews from the underclass up there.