Yeung promises up to £40m

New Blues supremo makes significant pledges

Last updated: 15th October 2009   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Yeung promises up to £40m

Yeung: Willing to back McLeish

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New Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung has pledged to invest up to £40million on new players in the January transfer window.

The Hong Kong businessman addressed the press for the first time on Thursday following his successful takeover at St Andrews.

Yeung's investment company Grandtop International Holdings completed the formalities of what has been a protracted £81.5million deal just over a week ago.

First on the agenda was how much Yeung would be putting on the table for Blues boss Alex McLeish to spend when the transfer window reopens in January.

Aware that significant investment is needed to establish Birmingham as a top flight outfit, Yeung promised a healthy transfer kitty.

He said: "I will talk to Alex about his needs first. My first plan is to support the club with 20million to 40million pounds."

Full support

Yeung insists McLeish has his full support as he vowed to work closely with him to make City "as big as possible".

Yeung bought a 29.9% stake in Birmingham two years ago, which made him the club's largest individual shareholder.

But it has taken him until now to take complete charge after the end of the 16-year David Sullivan and David Gold era .

Yeung said: "I'm happy to be here. It has taken a long time to buy the club - but finally I have got it.

"There were problems with each other regarding communication. When I took out the original 29.9% stake, I did not say I would then buy the club 100%.

"It just depended on the right time - and now I am so happy it has all gone through."

Yeung's right-hand man Sammy Yu added: "We will all be working together. It is too early at the moment to say which players we will be looking at - but we will work on a short-list and we will go for it."

United front

McLeish has been dogged by many injury problems with his squad since taking Birmingham back into the Premier League at the first attempt.

Yeung said: "I will be supporting the manager. We have an excellent management team.

"Our aim is to work hard to secure our position in the Premier League, not only for this year but for many years to come.

"Birmingham can become as big as possible. We are competitors for Aston Villa.

"In the short term I just care about January. But in the future there will be more money, and longer term we believe there is a major opportunity to build Birmingham's fan base in China and to generate new sources of revenue for the club.

"But for this to happen, our first priority must be to establish Birmingham as a Premier League club."

Yeung intends to take an active role with Birmingham but will have the support of chairman Vico Hui, joint vice-chairman Peter Pannu and Yu - plus chief executive Michael Dunford, who has similar experience with Derby and Everton.

Yeung promised: "I will be here three or four times a month and I will try and see every home game."

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