The “Football Leaks” show how closely the new management of Grasshoppers is involved with player adviser Jorge Mendes. By purchasing clubs, FIFA regulations can be avoided.
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Jenny Wang bought 90 percent of the shares with her newly founded company Champion Union HK Holdings Limited.
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–Wang’s husband Guo Guangchang is the founder and chairman of the Fosun Group. The Wolverhampton Wanderers owns this in the Premier League. At the same time, Fosun holds at least 15 percent of the player agent firm Gestifute of the mighty Jorge Mendes through its subsidiary Foyo.
REUTERS
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–Jorge Mendes is one of the most important players’ agents in the world. Among his clients is Cristiano Ronaldo. Mendes ’office was examined by the Portuguese public prosecutor in April as part of the“ Offside ”campaign. It is about allegations such as money laundering and tax evasion.
REUTERS
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–Nuno Espirito Santo was the first footballer to become a client of Jorge Mendes. Today he is a coach in Wolverhampton, where there are currently six players under contract who are also advised by Mendes.
Action images via Reuters
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–Jeff Shi is President of Wolverhampton Wanderers and thus used by the Fosun Group. When Fosun’s subsidiary Foyo joined Mendes ’Gestifute, Shi was CEO of Foyo. Nevertheless, he insists that donors have no influence on Wolverhampton transfers.
Action images via Reuters
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- The new GC owner Jenny Wang is the wife of Guo Guangchang, whose company Fosun owns Wolverhampton Wanderers.
- Fosun also holds shares in the company of player consultant Jorge Mendes through a subsidiary.
- Fifa has been banning companies or private individuals from transferring players since 2015.
- Fosun was already looking for a club in 2016 to circumvent this rule.
- The goal is “a global system in football”.
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If you like, the purchase of the Grasshoppers in China was planned four years ago. Well, it could have hit another club in another European league. But the goal that Yang Zhang formulated on August 16, 2016 is clear. The analyst of the Chinese Fosun group is interested in buying a “TPO Club”. In football, TPO stands for “Third Party Ownership” and means that someone other than a football club holds shares in the transfer rights of football players. This has been prohibited by the FIFA World Cup since May 2015. And that’s a problem for the Chinese business model.
Zhang’s email is part of a whole correspondence that was published by the online platform “Football Leaks” and evaluated by the journalist network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC). The emails only last until the end of 2017. But they give a pretty clear picture of what plans the new owners of Grasshoppers are likely to pursue. GC has become part of a global construct that aims to make a profit by buying and selling players. And that is looking for a way to circumvent the stricter rules of FIFA.
The deal with the king of player advisors
It all starts with the Chinese Fosun Group deciding in 2014 to make money from football. Fosun’s co-founder and chairman Guo Guangchang is the husband of the new GC owner Jenny Wang. Fosun turns to Portuguese player agent Jorge Mendes, one of the most powerful players on the market. He advises, among others, Cristiano Ronaldo.
In October 2015, an internal report by the Fosun Group concluded that there is only one area in football that can be used to earn money: trading in transfer rights. At the end of 2015, Fosun’s subsidiary Foyo bought 15 percent of the shares in Gestifute, the Mendes company, for EUR 42 million. His nephew and business partner Luis Correia wrote in an internal mail: «Bingo !!!!!!!!»
At that time, Gestifute held shares in the transfer rights of at least 50 players. The contract with Foyo shows that. This is not a problem when signing a contract. But it will be when FIFA tightened its rules in May 2015. From then on, the World Football Association will only allow football clubs to have transfer rights to players. Existing contracts remain valid. But new TPOs are prohibited.
The business model of Gestifute and Fosun is actually broken.
“Jorge can count on the source of income”
But Fosun does not want to withdraw from the business. Instead, a way is being sought to circumvent FIFA’s rules. And he is found too. In the summer of 2016, Fosun bought the Wolverhampton Wanderers for around CHF 60 million, who were then playing in the second-highest English league. It is clear from an email that Jeff Shi wrote to a Gestifute employee why it is this club: “You know that the main reason for investing in the Wolves is our trust in Jorge. (…) Jorge can count on the Wolves for a long, long time as the most trustworthy partner and source of income for the agency. »
Jeff Shi is CEO of Foyo at the time the Chinese joined Gestifute. After buying Wolverhampton, he became President of the Wolves. When asked by the EIC, he always denied that Mendes had a say in the Wolves’ business.
Shi does this with good reason: The rules of the English Football League (EFL) prohibit players’ agents from influencing a football club. In fact, the EFL examined the connections between Gestifute and the Wolves. In April 2018, however, she came to the conclusion that Mendes played “no role” with the Wolves and stopped her investigations.
The transfers from Wolverhampton, however, give a slightly different impression. Six of Mendes’s Wolves players are currently being advised. And coach Nuno Espirito Santo was the first professional to be signed with Mendes.
“A complete system in global football”
But a club alone is not enough to achieve Fosun’s goals. Yang Zhang’s mail from August 2016 makes this clear. The Fosun analyst writes to Mendes partner Correia: «Our goal is to build a global football system with you. With different levels of clubs and training facilities. (…) I believe that together we can build a strong presence in every major league. »
The email makes it clear what Fosun is about: The company wants to set up a network in which it can increase the value of footballers without breaking the rules of FIFA. And the Chinese can do this by not acting as the owner of transfer rights, but by the clubs that they control.
Fosun is very interested in the purchase of the Portuguese association Rio Ave in 2016, which already works closely with Gestifute. But then the Chinese central government struggles in between. It is tightening the rules for Chinese investments abroad. The deal doesn’t come about.
But now the signs for Chinese purchases abroad seem to be better again. And so in 2020 it is the Grasshoppers that will become the second club alongside Wolverhampton in the planned global network of Fosun and Gestifute.
If possible, no direct connections
The purchase is processed in such a way that there are as far as possible no direct connections between the different companies. Neither Fosun nor Foyo nor Gestifute appear as GC buyers. But the company Champion Union HK Holdings Limited, which was founded in Hong Kong in February 2020. This, in turn, is not owned by Fosun co-founder Guo Guangchang, but by his wife Jenny Wang.
This construct is also intended to comply with the rules of the European association Uefa. This prohibits two clubs of the same owner from participating in the same Uefa competition. Which means that the Chinese owners are at least flirting with the fact that one day both the Wolves and the Grasshoppers could be represented in Europe.
And why shouldn’t it come to that? In terms of sports, Wolverhampton has benefited from the Chinese entry. The club rose with the players and the coach who came via Mendes. He is currently sixth in the Premier League and even has a chance of a place in the Champions League.
You shouldn’t be rubbing your eyes in surprise when a surprising number of players from Portugal find their way to Niederhasli in the coming transfer periods. Or some loan players from Wolverhampton.
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