By Andrew Warshaw
March 7 – Carson Yeung, the Hong Kong barber-turned-businessman who appeared to have amassed a fortune when he moved into English football by buying Birmingham City, has been jailed for six years for money laundering.
The sentence came five days after Yeung was convicted of five charges relating to HK$720m (£55million) passing through his bank accounts between 2001 and 2007 and will send shockwaves through the game in terms of the legitimacy of foreign ownership.
Yeung claimed he had accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars through stock trading, business ventures in mainland China, a hair salon and gambling. But his trial heard how he had lied about how he earned his money and judge Douglas Yau said the sentence must be a deterrent to others.
Following an initial failed attempt in 2007, Yeung completed his £81.5 million takeover of Birmingham in October, 2009. Two years later the club won the domestic English League Cup but were relegated in the same season from the Premier League, never to return.
After several efforts at delaying the trial, Yeung, a former hair stylist to Hong Kong’s rich and famous, resigned from all roles on the various boards related to Birmingham just days before his conviction.
The court heard how he was unable to show where almost HK$100 million (£7.7 million) in his bank accounts had come from, with the prosecution revealing that huge sums of money had passed through five accounts from “unknown parties without any apparent reason”.
Sentencing Yeung at Hong Kong District Court, Yau said: “The sentence must include an element of deterrence to discourage those who are in a position to exploit the system.
“The law will come down on them with full force. Maintaining the integrity of the banking system is of paramount importance if Hong Kong is to remain an international finance centre.”
It is not yet clear what Yeung’s imprisonment will mean for Birmingham City, though officials insist the day-to-day running of the Championship club will continue unchanged. But the case seems bound to raise awkward questions about how he managed to pass the Premier League’s so-called fit and proper persons test for club directors.
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