Coventry fans took to try and mock West Brom supporters’ protest towards owner with a cheeky chant in the 12th minute of Friday night’s game.
Much of the home crowd shined a light on their phones in a planned 12th minute protest, shouting ‘if you want Lai Out stand up’, with Coventry fans replying ‘what the f***ing hell was that?!’, only for the away end to be silenced quickly after when the Baggies went ahead thanks to Grady Diangana poking the ball home from a long throw on the 15th minute.
The home support were protesting against Baggies majority shareholder Lai’s failure to repay his £4.95m loan to the club, which he had promised to repay around New Year.
Reporting live from the Hawthorns, BBC reporter Ged Scott wrote: “That was almost seamless the way Albion fans staged that.
“No sooner They lit up their phones for a planned protest against West Brom owner Guochuan Lai than it had an illuminating electrifying effect on the pitch too.
“It was starting to look as if it might be only a matter of time before the dam burst – and it finally did.
“A tad ironic that the goal actually came from a long throw, not a cross – but Jed Wallace’s move inside to accommodate new man Marc Albrighton on the wing looks inspired. He’s still been involved in almost everything – and he led the shared celebrations with one-half of the partitioned Smethwick End.
“On the other side of that partition, the Sky Blues fans have been silenced – and look stunned.
ACTION FOR ALBION STATEMENT
Action For Albion, the fan group highlighting the ongoing mismanagement of West Bromwich Albion Football Club, have announced their latest protest action at the upcoming fixture between West Bromwich Albion and Coventry City.
The Championship fixture, which is live on Sky Sports Football (red button) on Friday 3rd February (kick-off 8pm), will feature a protest in the 12th and 57th minutes – highlighting the £12m in loans, overseen by the current owners, that are under question by supporters of the Club.
In each half of the game, fans are once again asked to ‘shine a light’ on the ownership of the Club -including controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai – by turning on the torch on their mobile phones to create a visual protest inside the ground. Supporters are also encouraged to ‘stand up, if you want Lai out at the same time.
In March 2021, Lai took a loan of E4.95m out from the Football Club, with a further E50k of interest payable by September 2021. Having missed this original deadline Lai then claimed he would repay the loans by December 2022.
In June 2022, Lai stated in the Club’s annual accounts: “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.”
With less than 24 hours left in January this repayment has, as yet, failed to materialise, and Action For Albion are continuing to demand answers from the Club’s hierarchy. Last week the matter of the Club’s ownership was raised in Parliament by local MP Nicola Richards.
Action For Albion founding member and spokesperson, Ali Jones, said: “West Brom fans want answers as we deal with the latest in a series of broken promises. We are a realistic set of supporters, and as the end of the transfer window approaches we are not asking for the club to make big signings or gamble on our future – we are simply asking the controlling shareholders of our club to ensure we have a future, by paying back what they owe and not risking the club’s heritage with it.
“We ask all fans to join the protests against the owners in the 12th and 57th minutes on Friday night. We want to have maximum impact inside the ground and on TV, but continue to do so in a peaceful and constructive way. Either side of that we will support the manager and the players 100%, as we always do.”
Later this week Action For Albion will launch its new website wwww.actionforalbion.co.uk which will outline the group’s ongoing ambitions, a timeline of ownership and associated issues, as well as links to media that have highlighting the Club’s plight.
Action For Albion was formed to highlight the above issues on behalf of and alongside all West Bromwich Albion fans. It is aimed only at planned and peaceful protests and does not condone any illegal or anti-social methods of protest.\
Massive moment today as @action4albion and #wba are discussed in parliament.
Obviously it’s closing the gate after the horse has bolted for us but maybe, just maybe the government might start taking action to protect our wonderful clubs from those who’d do them harm!#wba pic.twitter.com/GXDoK77Oy5
— Chris Hall (@CJHall83) January 26, 2023
West Brom manager Carlos Corberan:“If you lose a game, you’re talking about a crisis. If you win a game, you’re talking about this (top two).
“My mentality is to keep performing well because I know if my team performs better, we have more chances to win the game. And the more games we win, the better position we will be in the table.
“To do this, we need positive results and the main way to get positive results is to have positive performances. So this is our focus.
“Every time we’re here in front of our fans, we’re pleased to make them proud.
“The idea was to look for the result from the first moment to the last one. We try to be aggressive in defence and try to play with a lot of personality in attack and be dominant.
“The level of commitment, personality and concentration was very high. That level enabled us to win the game and deserve the result we achieved. It was the right reaction we needed and the right mentality to finish the game.
“The second half was different and we couldn’t control it at the same level but for me with the changes, the team was balanced more.”
Coventry manager Mark Robins: “The first half wasn’t great so whoever you’re playing, you can’t start like that so that was disappointing.
“In this league, if you start on the front foot, you can push them back but we didn’t do it.
“They came onto us and we didn’t deal with it – we were sloppy, and there was a ball out from Ben Wilson where we slashed at it and that started to play with our minds.
“It was disappointing and the goal compounded that. We had one opportunity that was fashioned pretty well when we got down their right-hand side and put a ball in the box and Viktor Gyokeres was just inches away from tapping it into an empty net.
“But it wasn’t enough and we spoke about it at half-time and we started a bit better.”
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