Mark Jenkins: Owner Guochuan Lai has 'long-term commitment' to West Brom
Mark Jenkins insists owner Guochuan Lai has a “long-term commitment” to making Albion a successful Premier League club.
The Baggies sit bottom of the division and appear certain to lose their top flight status for the first time since 2010.
But chief executive Jenkins claims Lai’s determination to rebuild is what helped convince him to return to the club last month.
“I like Guochuan Lai. He is and (Palm) are a smashing group of people,” said Jenkins. “I felt I owe him the chance of rebuilding it.
“What is encouraging is that Mr Lai is committed to the long-term, not necessarily a one-year return.
“He understands the size of the club and the fact it needs to be structured correctly and managed correctly to be established in the Premier League on a long-term basis.”
Lai is based in China and has made virtually no public comment since buying out Jeremy Peace’s majority stake in the club in August 2016.
Jenkins, who visited Lai in the Far East earlier this month, has vowed to improve communication between the owner, club and supporters.
Li Piuye, Lai’s European-based associate, has been widely tipped to become the next Baggies chairman.
And Jenkins said: “I do think communication has not been great over the last 12 months, though it’s not easy.
“I’ll go out there far more often, at least once every four to six weeks.
“Guochuan Lai or his assistant Mr Li will come the other way as well so we’ll be meeting every two or three weeks to discuss all the issues within the club.”
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Jenkins has meanwhile admitted Albion must “adapt and evolve” as he seeks to put the club on a sounder financial footing.
Under Peace, the Baggies had a reputation for being prudently run yet some expensive mistakes in the transfer market mean they now require an overdraft facility for the first time in more than a decade.
Jenkins admitted the club’s short-term cost control was at its limit with regard to wages-to-turnover ratio.
He added: “From outside looking in, I thought that was a negotiating stance.
“I knew the figures when I left (in December 2016), I thought ‘in no way can we be at our limit’.
“But I can assure you we are right at our max. We could not spend any more money on player wages. We are at the maximum point.
“There has to be change, there will be change anyway.
“People will say ‘are you going back to the way Jeremy ran the business?’ I’d like to go back to the principles Jeremy instilled.
“But football models change all the time. Over the last few years, FFP and short-term cost control have become far more relevant.
“The way the club operated five or six years ago, it can’t operate that way anymore.
“We’ve got rules we have to comply with and other clubs are doing things differently so it makes more difficult for us to compete. We have to adapt and evolve.”
