An obscure Chinese investor buys an unfashionable Premier League football club and promises to transform their prospects, making them big in China by signing leading Chinese players and sealing lucrative sponsorship deals thanks to his guanxi, or connections.

But the reign at Birmingham City FC of Carson Yeung, a former hair salon owner who became the first Chinese proprietor of an English top-flight team in 2009, ended in ignominy. The team was relegated to the second tier of English football, Yeung was jailed in Hong Kong for money laundering in 2014 and the club remains barely known in China.

The Chinese tycoons who have invested more than $2bn in European football clubs since the start of last year — and the fans who support these teams — are hoping that this time is different.