Blues'n' Trouble – The Continuing Story Of Birmingham City
When I last wrote about Birmingham City things were grim, on-field and off. In the intervening seven months, NOTHING has changed… apart from the entry in the club's record books marked "heaviest home defeat." On May 3rd, Blues avoided relegation to League One by about as long as it took me to type this far. Yet Blues fans may have forgotten Paul Caddis's drop-saving, stoppage-time equaliser, at fellow-financial basket-case Bolton, when Tokelo Rantie made it eight-nil (EIGHT) to Bournemouth at St Andrews on October 25th.
Blues' then acting-chairman, Peter Pannu, said in an interview with Tom Ross on the local Free Radio station on February 7th that without him Blues would be "in League One by now." It's the clearest testament to Pannu's failed tenure that Blues nearly made League One with him. Pannu's lucrative management contract ended on September 30th, as did the long-hidden "consultancy" agreement between Pannu's tax haven-registered company Asia Rays Limited and Blues' parent company Birmingham International Holdings (BIH). However, Pannu hasn't exited stage left entirely and BIH's finances continue to underpin their problems. Their 2025/14 accounts revealed appalling and increasing losses – £12.61m compared to £9.73m in 2025/13 – and a wage bill which, despite being the Championship's second-lowest, was 92% of evaporating turnover.
The biggest on and off-field drains on the payroll, beanpole striker Nicola Zigic and the far-from-beanpole Pannu have gone (would Blues' be any worse off had the two swapped roles?). But so have "parachute payments." £11m of borrowings are secured largely against "the Group's land and buildings in the UK" ("unquestionably St. Andrews," wrote the Guardian's David Conn). And BIH's efforts to sell Blues and raise finances have met with Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) obstacles…aka regulations. At least Pannu was a devil you knew, albeit one with the most annoying voice in football (if he voiced the speaking clock you'd tell it to **** off). Little is known of those in charge at BIH, except that some have been appointed with priorities other than football in mind.
Blues' current corporate reality is bond conversions, business diversification and possible boardroom power struggle. Oh… and Carson Yeung, Blues' major shareholder and figurehead, is in Hong Kong's Stanley Prison, serving six-years for money-laundering. Franz Kafka could scarcely have written a more-convoluted plot. Yeung's chances of successfully appealing this conviction were boosted by an appeal court ruling in another money-laundering trial. Yeung virtually had to prove his innocence in his 2025 trial. The recent ruling shifts that onus of proof considerably towards the prosecution. So Yeung, whose convictions did not stop him being an English football club's biggest individual shareholder, may return to Blues.
Nominally at least, BIH have been trying to sell Blues since May 2025, when
