Two years ago, Hong Kong businessman Kenneth Huang Jianhua tried to buy Liverpool football club in a deal that promised the Reds oodles of mainland money to build a new stadium.
His bid, which Monitor described at the time as 'stone crazy', came to nothing, and a couple of months later, the Premier League club was snapped up by American futures trader John Henry.
Given Liverpool's mediocre performance since then, Huang and his backers should be congratulating themselves on a lucky escape.
He didn't learn his lesson. Yesterday Huang hit the headlines again, this time as front-man for a consortium of mainland investors that is paying as much as Euro75 million (HK$714 million) for a 15 per cent stake in Italian football club Inter Milan. And as part of the deal, state behemoth China Railway Construction Corp is proposing to build Inter a brand-new stadium.
Unfortunately for Huang, Inter is such a dog financially that in comparison even loss-making Liverpool would have been a champion investment.
At first glance, Inter looks relatively attractive. With net revenues for the 2010-11 season of Euro211 million, the Italian club ranks eighth in Deloitte's Football Money League, one place above Liverpool.