I'm Joe Devine and welcome to the TIFO football podcast.

Today I'm joined by James Montague.

We talked about Chinese investment in European football and the Premier League,

specifically Zhao Ging, who is Southampton's new owner.

So I asked James about what Southampton and Southampton fans can expect to get from that.

We also talked about the topic more generally and what we can expect from the future of Chinese investment in sports abroad.

So thanks very much for downloading. A very quick note on the TIFO name change. Our website release has been delayed by a couple of weeks, so we're looking at mid-November now,

but I'll keep you updated on that.

Thanks very much for downloading.

Hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I'll see you again next week. James, you recently wrote the script for a video on Southampton's new owner Zhao Ji Sheng,

a topic which is inextricably linked to China's football investment boom.

So to begin with, I wondered if you could give us a little bit of background on Zhao Ji Shang.

Yeah, well, Zhao Ji Sheng has actually been kind of, his name has been connected to Southampton and the possibility that the Lieber family,

the Katerina Lieber, was going to sell the club. It was something that's been on the Lieber family, the Catherine Leiber, was going to sell

the club. It was something that's been on the cards really, I mean, for a couple of years

since her father, who originally bought the club, died. But she's stuck in there. And Jiao Chi

has kind of been around it for over a year. And what was interesting was when the Chinese football boom,

when Chinese companies really started buying clubs all across Europe starting a few years ago

and investing heavily in the Chinese Super League, but in terms of buying foreign football clubs, I mean,

anywhere from Espagnol to a club I followed very closely for my last book, Billionaires Club,

Ardo Den Haag, of course, the Inter Milan and AC Milan sagas. And of course, China seems to have

brought up most of the West Midlands as well.

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