Southampton are the latest Premier League club to be bought by a foreign investor as Chinese sports investment company Lander bought an 80% stake for £210 million.
The Saints are now the fifth club in English football to be owned by Chinese investors, joining West Bromwich Albion, Aston Villa, Birmingham and Wolves.
The chairman of Lander, Jisheng Gao, and now new owner of Southampton spoke to the Associated Press,
Together, we have the passion and motivation to build on Southampton’s excellent progress in recent years as we look forward to an exciting next chapter for the club.
Southampton had been under the ownership of the Liebherr family and they had overseen the renaissance since 2009 when the club found themselves all the way down in League One.
It has been a remarkable rise for the Saints as they achieved back to back promotions with manager Nigel Adkins from League One to the Premier League between 2011 to 2013.
Karen Liebher posted a letter to the Southampton fan's on their website explaining the situation,
For now it is business as usual at Southampton Football Club and we must allow everyone at the club to focus on the first few weeks of the new season,
The Liebher family had the Saints running like a well oiled machine ever since they have been in control of the club, investing in their academy, training facilities and sport science department, rather than spending huge sum's on new recruits.
The proof is in the pudding since, when they sold several of their youth products to the bigger Premier League outfits such as Luke Shaw to Man United for £30 million and Adam Lallana to Liverpool for £25 million.
The Saints opened their Premier League account at the weekend with a 0-0 draw with Swansea on Saturday, but new manager Mauricio Pellegrino must be wondering how, as they dominated The Swans from start to finish and they could not convert one of their 29 attempts on goal.
