Chinese online tycoon in talks to buy Liverpool FC

Wednesday, 12 May 2010


A Chinese Internet gaming tycoon, who once played against Liverpool, is in talks to buy the Premier League club, Chinese media reported on Wednesday.


Zhu Jun, chairman of Nasdaq-listed online game company The9 Limited, said the negotiations were 'ongoing,' but added that the outcome would be hard to predict, the Beijing Times reported.


Officials at Shanghai-based The9 would not confirm the talks had taken place. 'So far we have no comment on this,' company spokeswoman Phyllis Sai said.



Zhu, who already owns Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua, has held two preliminary meetings with Barclays Capital, the investment bank hired to handle the sale, The Independent newspaper in the UK reported.


They took place in Hong Kong in late April and more recently in Shanghai, it said, citing unnamed sources.


The Independent said the 44-year-old proposes to head a consortium of businessmen, perhaps including one or more other owners of Chinese Super League clubs, to make a bid.


Zhu is a long-time admirer of Liverpool and actually played against them in 2007.


He bought Shanghai United in 2006 and then took control of rivals Shanghai Shenhua a year later to force a merger between the two teams.


It was soon after this that he lived out a dream by donning Shenhua's number 16 shirt and playing under a pseudonym against Liverpool in Rotterdam.


Although he only played for five minutes, the game took his obsession with the club to a new level, he told the Beijing Times.


If Zhu is successful in buying Liverpool, he will become the second Chinese owner of a Premier League club, following in the footsteps of Hong Kong billionaire Carson Yeung who owns Birmingham.

so next season Gerrard, Torres and co could all be clones,