Asked if he expected head coach Scott Miller to keep his job if Lee’s Ledman Group takes over, McKinna said the club desperately needed stability to resurrect its fortunes.
“This is just me talking – it’s got nothing to do with Ledman – but the club needs stability. It’s had an up and down last few years with ownership and nobody knowing what’s going on,” he said.
“Last year, under difficult circumstances, the club improved on the year before. You’ve actually put down a base. You can’t just walk in and start chopping and changing things.”
McKinna described Lee as a “shrewd businessman” who was unlikely to throw millions of dollars at the team in the first year, despite his ambition to have a presence in the Asian Champions League.
“He’s never spoken to me about that, but I think the first year will be a cautious kind of start, until he understands the business. I don’t think it’s going to be big-time Charlie coming in and chucking his money about the place. I don’t think that at all.
“If people expect him to come in and start shelling out for superstars, I don’t think that’s going to happen. And I don’t think it needs to happen straight away. I think people want to see a fair bit of representation from local boys getting in the team, they want to see a team that works hard and plays for the fans.”
McKinna, who travelled to China last month, said Lee was a keen football supporter, but buying the Jets would be a business decision first.
Last year he bought a minor share in global sports marketing company Infront, which was bought by Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group in February 2015 for $US1.2billion.
“In the beginning I thought it was getting his LED business into Australia, but his business is in Australia already. So I was asking, ‘Why does he want an A-League club?’ But once you get to know him he’s got a large media presence in China. He’s a shareholder in one of the biggest sports media companies in the world.
“He’s also got his own football app in China as well and an interest in some other media company he’s just bought, and they’ve got all the TV rights for all the tube stations and buses.
“When I went there and saw the sports media side of things, I went, ‘Now it starts making sense why he would want to have a club in Australia.’
“He loves football – he’s got his own club, and around about his offices everything’s football, so he loves the game. At his factory he just spent $US500,000 building a new astro turf football field for his workers and for the local community to use.
“He sees this as a vehicle for his business. I speak to the guy every couple of days. It’s definitely a business decision.”
He said he had given Lee newspaper clippings and a DVD of the 2008 grand final, when the Jets beat McKinna’s Mariners.
“I said, ‘This is the potential this club’s got.’ He’s passionate, but I think it’s business. He loves the sport, but it’s a business decision as well. People just can’t afford to come in and shop millions of dollars to enter a football club; they have to make the business side of things work.”
McKinna said Lee was keen to have a presence in the lucrative ACL, but his Chinese third-tier club, Shenzhen Renren, was a long way from being able to compete with the giants of Chinese football like Guangzhou Evergrande and Shanghai Shenhua.
He said the Jets, competing for two ACL places in a 10-team league, offered a much better opportunity to compete on that stage.
“He knows he can’t just flick a switch and win the [Australian] league. He knows that.
“His team in China have three leagues to go up before they even have a sniff of getting in the ACL.
“The guy might be a wealthy businessman, but he’s not on the same page as some of these guys who invest in the hundreds of millions of dollars in the Super League in China.
“So, realistically, in Australia you’ve got 10 teams, and you’ve got two chances in 10. And that’s definitely something that interests him. In the ACL the television rights are massive, so that’s where the business side of things comes in.”
McKinna said Lee, who speaks English, would look to involve local companies as Jets sponsors rather than have Ledman livery on the club’s shirts.
“Early indications are that he would prefer local businesses to get behind it. It definitely won’t be like what’s happened in the past where it’s been all in-house sponsorship.
“He’ll be wanting to engage with the community big time, because that’s what I’ve told him from day one, that if you come into this town and you’re an outsider and you don’t treat people with respect, you’ll not get respect, but if you come in here and engage and work with the community, you’ll get good success.
“He might get Chinese sponsors out here, but they’ll be totally separate to him.”
McKinna said Lee would have a presence in Newcastle “going back and forward” to China but expected him to allow his local management team to run the club.
He said he had been impressed by Lee’s conduct at a recent Shenzhen Renren game after his team won.
“He never went in the dressing room after the game. He came into the box and had a drink with everybody then jumped in his car and left,” McKinna said.
“None of this hanging about the dressing rooms and backslapping and walking around the park. None of that stuff at all. As an ex-coach it was fantastic to see. It’s about the players and the team; it’s not about general managers of football or the CEO. It’s about the players on the park and the coaching staff. That’s who people come along and pay money to see and listen to.”
He said part of Lee’s business model could be to send Chinese players to Newcastle to give them experience then sell them back into the Chinese football market, where transfer fees have grown exponentially in recent times. But he cautioned that this was viable only if the players were as good as or better than the players in the Jets squad.
McKinna said he hoped the sale would be completed by the end of the month to allow the club to start planning for next season.
David Eland, who has been acting in a temporary capacity as Jets chief executive, is due to finish at the club next week and return full-time to his primary job as Northern NSW Football boss.
McKinna said he did not meet Lee during his time coaching in China but had been introduced to him recently by an intermediary.
“In my time in China I never knew the Ledman Group, but one of the agents contacted me who lived in China and now lives in Australia and asked if I knew of any of the A-League clubs that would possibly be for sale.
He said he had received dozens of similar inquiries since coaching in China, but Lee had indicated he was serious about following through.
McKinna set up meetings with the FFA and brought Ledman representatives to Newcastle to meet Eland and inspect Hunter Stadium. He also organised a meeting with Primo Smallgoods boss Paul Lederer, who headed up the consortium that bought Western Sydney Wanderers in 2014.
“I wanted them to meet somebody who had just bought a club,” he said.
Lee and his representatives had returned to Australia a second time to meet again with FFA, and Newcastle lawyers Moray & Agnew were handling the due diligence and sale documents.
“It’s all going along all right. It just takes time,” McKinna said.
“This is just me talking – it’s got nothing to do with Ledman – but the club needs stability. It’s had an up and down last few years with ownership and nobody knowing what’s going on,” he said.
“Last year, under difficult circumstances, the club improved on the year before. You’ve actually put down a base. You can’t just walk in and start chopping and changing things.”
McKinna described Lee as a “shrewd businessman” who was unlikely to throw millions of dollars at the team in the first year, despite his ambition to have a presence in the Asian Champions League.
“He’s never spoken to me about that, but I think the first year will be a cautious kind of start, until he understands the business. I don’t think it’s going to be big-time Charlie coming in and chucking his money about the place. I don’t think that at all.
“If people expect him to come in and start shelling out for superstars, I don’t think that’s going to happen. And I don’t think it needs to happen straight away. I think people want to see a fair bit of representation from local boys getting in the team, they want to see a team that works hard and plays for the fans.”
McKinna, who travelled to China last month, said Lee was a keen football supporter, but buying the Jets would be a business decision first.
Last year he bought a minor share in global sports marketing company Infront, which was bought by Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group in February 2015 for $US1.2billion.
“In the beginning I thought it was getting his LED business into Australia, but his business is in Australia already. So I was asking, ‘Why does he want an A-League club?’ But once you get to know him he’s got a large media presence in China. He’s a shareholder in one of the biggest sports media companies in the world.
“He’s also got his own football app in China as well and an interest in some other media company he’s just bought, and they’ve got all the TV rights for all the tube stations and buses.
“When I went there and saw the sports media side of things, I went, ‘Now it starts making sense why he would want to have a club in Australia.’
“He loves football – he’s got his own club, and around about his offices everything’s football, so he loves the game. At his factory he just spent $US500,000 building a new astro turf football field for his workers and for the local community to use.
“He sees this as a vehicle for his business. I speak to the guy every couple of days. It’s definitely a business decision.”
He said he had given Lee newspaper clippings and a DVD of the 2008 grand final, when the Jets beat McKinna’s Mariners.
“I said, ‘This is the potential this club’s got.’ He’s passionate, but I think it’s business. He loves the sport, but it’s a business decision as well. People just can’t afford to come in and shop millions of dollars to enter a football club; they have to make the business side of things work.”
McKinna said Lee was keen to have a presence in the lucrative ACL, but his Chinese third-tier club, Shenzhen Renren, was a long way from being able to compete with the giants of Chinese football like Guangzhou Evergrande and Shanghai Shenhua.
He said the Jets, competing for two ACL places in a 10-team league, offered a much better opportunity to compete on that stage.
“He knows he can’t just flick a switch and win the [Australian] league. He knows that.
“His team in China have three leagues to go up before they even have a sniff of getting in the ACL.
“The guy might be a wealthy businessman, but he’s not on the same page as some of these guys who invest in the hundreds of millions of dollars in the Super League in China.
“So, realistically, in Australia you’ve got 10 teams, and you’ve got two chances in 10. And that’s definitely something that interests him. In the ACL the television rights are massive, so that’s where the business side of things comes in.”
McKinna said Lee, who speaks English, would look to involve local companies as Jets sponsors rather than have Ledman livery on the club’s shirts.
“Early indications are that he would prefer local businesses to get behind it. It definitely won’t be like what’s happened in the past where it’s been all in-house sponsorship.
“He’ll be wanting to engage with the community big time, because that’s what I’ve told him from day one, that if you come into this town and you’re an outsider and you don’t treat people with respect, you’ll not get respect, but if you come in here and engage and work with the community, you’ll get good success.
“He might get Chinese sponsors out here, but they’ll be totally separate to him.”
McKinna said Lee would have a presence in Newcastle “going back and forward” to China but expected him to allow his local management team to run the club.
He said he had been impressed by Lee’s conduct at a recent Shenzhen Renren game after his team won.
“He never went in the dressing room after the game. He came into the box and had a drink with everybody then jumped in his car and left,” McKinna said.
“None of this hanging about the dressing rooms and backslapping and walking around the park. None of that stuff at all. As an ex-coach it was fantastic to see. It’s about the players and the team; it’s not about general managers of football or the CEO. It’s about the players on the park and the coaching staff. That’s who people come along and pay money to see and listen to.”
He said part of Lee’s business model could be to send Chinese players to Newcastle to give them experience then sell them back into the Chinese football market, where transfer fees have grown exponentially in recent times. But he cautioned that this was viable only if the players were as good as or better than the players in the Jets squad.
McKinna said he hoped the sale would be completed by the end of the month to allow the club to start planning for next season.
David Eland, who has been acting in a temporary capacity as Jets chief executive, is due to finish at the club next week and return full-time to his primary job as Northern NSW Football boss.
McKinna said he did not meet Lee during his time coaching in China but had been introduced to him recently by an intermediary.
“In my time in China I never knew the Ledman Group, but one of the agents contacted me who lived in China and now lives in Australia and asked if I knew of any of the A-League clubs that would possibly be for sale.
He said he had received dozens of similar inquiries since coaching in China, but Lee had indicated he was serious about following through.
McKinna set up meetings with the FFA and brought Ledman representatives to Newcastle to meet Eland and inspect Hunter Stadium. He also organised a meeting with Primo Smallgoods boss Paul Lederer, who headed up the consortium that bought Western Sydney Wanderers in 2014.
“I wanted them to meet somebody who had just bought a club,” he said.
Lee and his representatives had returned to Australia a second time to meet again with FFA, and Newcastle lawyers Moray & Agnew were handling the due diligence and sale documents.
“It’s all going along all right. It just takes time,” McKinna said.
