Lewis Cox comment: West Brom fans’ faith evaporates as the goalposts move again

In truth, you would have been hard-pushed to find an Albion supporter – even those whose glass is much more than half-full – who expected the £5million loan (including interest) to return to the club’s coffers on time.

Saturday, December 31, was the second deadline for Albion’s controlling shareholder and chairman Lai – absent from these shores for more than a year now – to return the significant sum he took from the club in March 2021.

The final day of 2022 was also 15 months since the original ‘deadline’ to pay back the initial £4.95m borrowing – which only came to light as public knowledge when the delayed accounts were finally published last summer.

So, with deafening silence from the club and WBA Group as Saturday’s deadline approached, there was almost no expectancy the funds would be transferred as promised by Lai last summer.

The controlling shareholder said back then of the loan used to aid his company Wisdom Smart Corporation: “The upturn in the global economy has brought with it greater positivity and I can confirm I will repay the loan in full, with interest, by the end of the current calendar year and the funds will be available to the club during the January 2023 transfer window.”

Instead, a very short statement confirmed Lai has given ‘assurances’ the funds will be returned ‘early in the new year’. Not even a firm deadline, just vagueness. No Albion fan expects to see that cash repaid any time soon.

Tired and untrusting supporters grew even more sceptical in the week leading up to the deadline when WBA Group borrowed £20m from a US investment firm to pay for running costs – a loan taken out against assets including The Hawthorns and the club’s training base.

Supporters have been buffeted by blow after blow with regards to their club’s ownership and finances.

There was already little trust left in this ownership – anybody who has set foot in The Hawthorns this season has seen that.

Goodwill with the ownership feels historic, trust has now totally evaporated and what has been left is sheer loathing and contempt.

The football club is operating with one hand tied behind its back. The path ahead is at least partially-blocked by ownership who are doing next to nothing to help achieve the on-field goal – promotion to the Premier League.

The real promised land to Baggies supporters at the moment is having a club free of financial concern and run with care and consideration, regardless of the division.

Chief executive Ron Gourlay and head coach Carlos Corberan are doing what they can.

Gourlay, appointed early last year, is effectively running the day-to-day business as a one-man band. The former Manchester United and Chelsea official has received no shortage of ire from fed-up fans but that should be directed elsewhere – notably, as it is, at the absent majority shareholder, as well as the sole director on the WBA Group board, Xu Ke.

Gourlay, unfortunately in the current climate, is the face of the club and, as far as running operations go, carries the can.

He is the one that promised transparency and open communication and that, when possible, must be delivered. But he is not in charge of a lot of big decisions made above his head that drive this justifiable anger and rage.

Corberan – the newly-appointed head coach with whom Albion appear to have struck gold – can only do what he is currently managing, to block out the noise and power on.

It remains to be seen how this latest update hits the head coach and his plans. Lai promised January transfer funding with the £5m. It has not appeared.

Do the £20m MSD Holdings funds fill any of that gap? We have been told the loans are totally separate. One would imagine Corberan would be unhappy if promised funds were unfulfilled.

This is a new low, even for Lai’s rocky-at-best tenure. With protests planned at home to Reading today, including a meet on Halfords Lane after the game, relations between supporters and the owner have never been more fraught.