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The Chinese businessman eyeing up Anfield is not a tycoon but an ambitious deal-maker with a passion for sport

Few in Britain have heard of Kenneth Huang, the Chinese businessman now in talks to take control of Liverpool. But then, few in China or the United States knew of the sports entrepreneur before he launched an ambitious $70m bid to buy a stake in a National Basketball Association team 15 months ago.

Born Huang Jianhua in southern Guangdong province in 1964, he is said to have been an outstanding badminton player in his youth. But it is by combining his love of sport and contacts in China with American business experience – he was the first Chinese graduate to work at the New York Stock Exchange – that he has made headlines.

He graduated from his hometown’s Zhongshan University before moving overseas to study at Columbia University and then complete a masters degree at St John’s in New York. He reportedly speaks Japanese as well as Mandarin, Cantonese and English.

Unlike previous high-profile foreign bidders for British teams, he is not a tycoon but a deal-maker who has built his career on bringing people and organisations together – specifically, American and Chinese businesses.

His first notable forays into the sports world came when he cut deals to market the Houston Rockets – given the vast appetite for basketball among young people in China where there are said to be up to 300m fans it was an obvious match – and baseball’s New York Yankees to Chinese businesses.

But he grabbed attention when he led a Chinese investment group’s move to buy a 15% stake in the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers in spring last year. Months later, he underlined his domestic ambitions with a preliminary deal to take over the Jilin Northeast Tigers, part of the Chinese Basketball Association.

His Hong Kong-based QSL company also announced a 15-year deal to help develop a youth baseball team in China, investing several million dollars to raise the profile of a sport largely unknown in the country.

“It seems like he is trying to piece together a one-man-created sports empire: baseball, basketball, football; the US, England and China,” said Maggie Rauch, editor of the China Sports Today blog. “The industry perception is that they are keeping an eye on this guy and seeing what he is up to. So far he has maybe done more talking than doing as far as building anything here in sports goes.”

Huang is also managing director of Rocket Capital – the investment platform he launched with Leslie Alexander, owner of the Houston Rockets – which focuses on emerging markets and particularly China. So far they have invested in companies ranging from the China Railway Group to carmakers Brilliance Auto, the Xinjiang Xinxin Mining Industry Company and the Longrun Tea Group.

Unsurprisingly, he appears as well-connected in the world of Chinese business and government as he is in sporting circles.

A biographical note on the website of Aspen Infrastructure – where he is a director – describes him as “one of the most accomplished business executives partnering with some of the largest state-owned enterprises in China”.

Despite his ambition he has kept a low profile, giving few interviews or press conferences. An employee at QSL Limited said today that no one was available to speak to reporters.

LiverpoolPremier LeagueBusinessTania Braniganguardian.co.uk

• Spaniard leaves Anfield ‘by mutual consent’ after six years
• Kenny Dalglish to assist with search for new manager

Liverpool have confirmed the departure of their manager Rafael Benítez. The club released a statement this afternoon saying the Spaniard is to leave the club “by mutual consent”.

Kenny Dalglish is to assist the Liverpool managing director, Christian Purslow, in the search for a replacement. Roy Hodgson, Martin O’Neill and Louis van Gaal are among the bookmakers early favourites for the post.

“It is very sad for me to announce that I will no longer be manager of Liverpool FC,” Benítez said. “I would like to thank all of the staff and players for their efforts.

“I’ll always keep in my heart the good times I’ve had here, the strong and loyal support of the fans in the tough times and the love from Liverpool. I have no words to thank you enough for all these years and I am very proud to say that I was your manager.”

• Today in Sport: Have your say on Benítez’s Anfield exit
• Gallery: The highs and lows of Rafael Benítez’s tenure
• In pictures: Who could be next for Liverpool?
• From Bellamy to Kromkamp: Liverpool’s transfer failures

Benítez joined the club from Valencia in 2004 and guided the side to the Champions League title in his first season in charge. The FA Cup followed in 2006, but he was unable to transform his side’s cup form into Premier League success.

Despite regular top-four finishes, the closest Liverpool came to the title during his reign was in 2008-09, when they were runners-up to Manchester United. Last season Benítez’s side missed out on the Champions League qualifying spots, finishing the season in seventh.

Despite those shortcomings in the league, Benítez is admired by the Internazionale president, Massimo Moratti, who is searching for a replacement for José Mourinho at San Siro.

Liverpool statement in full

Liverpool FC today confirmed that Rafael Benitez is to leave the club by mutual consent.

Mr Benitez relinquishes his position as team manager after six years and the Board of Directors would like to place on record their grateful thanks for his services and wish him all the best in his future career.

The Board has now asked Managing Director Christian Purslow, with the assistance of Club Ambassador Kenny Dalglish, to begin a formal search to identify and assess potential candidates for the managerial position.

No timescale has been placed on the process and Liverpool FC will make no further statement until a new manager is appointed.

LFC Chairman Martin Broughton said: “Rafa will forever be part of Liverpool folklore after bringing home the Champions League following the epic final in Istanbul but after a disappointing season both parties felt a fresh start would be best for all concerned.”

Rafael Benitez said: “It is very sad for me to announce that I will no longer be manager of Liverpool FC. I would like to thank all of the staff and players for their efforts.

“I’ll always keep in my heart the good times I’ve had here, the strong and loyal support of the fans in the tough times and the love from Liverpool. I have no words to thank you enough for all these years and I am very proud to say that I was your manager.

“Thank you so much once more and always remember: You’ll never walk alone.”

Rafael BenítezLiverpoolJohn Ashdownguardian.co.uk

It’s little things, not important ones, that sour a relationship. With McClaren it was the brolly; with Rafa it’s the goatee

It is a well-known fact that most relationships which end in acrimony do so not because of a single major incident, but as a consequence of the cumulative, maddening effect of a small aspect of one party’s personal appearance or habits. A single nasal hair that goes perpetually unclipped; leaving blue naval fluff on the side of the bath; saying “John White of Spurs’ Double-winning side was killed by lightning, you know” whenever there is a distant roll of thunder. That kind of stuff.

As in life, so in sport. It is not the big events – the lies, the deceit, the wild and profligate spending on Argentinian left-backs – which send lifelong supporters to the phonebook to look up the number of a lawyer so they can discuss who gets custody of Peter Crouch, but the irksome, maddening little details.

Ultimately it wasn’t Steve McClaren’s record as England boss that drove fans up the wall. Sir Bobby Robson’s early years in charge of the national team were no more successful than the Wally with the Brolly’s were, yet failure to make the European Championship finals in 1984 did not cost Sir Bobby his job. No, it was not results that led to the irretrievable breakdown of our relationship with the Yorkshireman – it was his toothy grin, coach driver quiff and that bloody, damned umbrella. God, even now I feel like breaking it over his head.

Likewise, while there may appear to be many important reasons why Liverpool have fallen out of love with Rafael Benítez (the 11 defeats so far this season, the failure to secure a Champions League place, the potential loss of Fernando Torres), I can’t help thinking that his ridiculous goatee beard is very much the “you never once rang out the dishcloth properly” of this apparently soured romance.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. After all, Benítez’s demi-beard is one of the most unpleasant examples of sporting facial hair since Ruud Gullit shaved his wretched moustache off. Imagine having to look at that prickly arrangement every home match. It would be enough to make Gandhi knee somebody in the groin.

The goatee wasn’t with Benítez when he arrived, of course. It only appeared three years into the Spaniard’s Anfield tenure. It wasn’t so much as a shadowy presence at the end of the 2006-07 season. Then at the start of the 2007-08 term – bang! – there it was with all its unsettling hints at a midlife crisis, and the possibility of intimate tattoos and genital piercings.

Benítez was like a schoolboy who over the summer holidays has reinvented himself after watching too many WWE wrestling DVDs. The difference was that a schoolboy would have been compelled by the ridicule of his peers – and the fact that the big lads with the love-bites, who hung around the toilets smoking and spitting, would have used his bristly chin to clean the bogs – to get rid of it within a week. Benítez, however, has clung on to his goatee more fiercely with every passing month. If only he could have taken the same stubborn approach when it came to hanging on to Xabi Alonso, things might have been different.

What provoked the onset of the troublesome goatee is hard to say. Clearly the presence of José Mourinho didn’t help. He looked like Marcello Mastroianni, Rafa like Bernard Bresslaw. Why the Liverpool boss would attempt to counter the Portuguese’s tousled gunmetal thatch and luxuriant overcoat with a goatee and a warm-up jacket that looked like the lagging off an old boiler is another matter.

“Maybe he saw The Office and thought David Brent was supposed to be cool,” a friend replies when I ask him, “Who knows the ways different cultures misinterpret each other. The Spanish thought Vinny Samways was a hard case when he was playing in La Liga.”

Down the years many managers have adopted some kind of stylistic gimmick. Bob Paisley wore his slippers to work, Mário Zagallo sported a baggy polyester jacket that looked like a shell-kaftan, Egil Olsen favoured Larry Grayson-style specs on a string and gumboots, Herbert “Curly” Prohaska insisted on wearing a lucky yellow tie even though the fact he was managing Austria suggested that his good fortune had expired at the job interview stage. Benítez briefly flirted with a pair of unlikely-looking socks, decorated with what appeared to be an image of Bart Simpson.

I’d guess that some of these sartorial quirks are the equivalent of the fighting haircut many boxers get a few weeks before stepping into the ring – part of the psychological preparation. Maybe Rafa’s goatee was intended the same way. If so it was misconceived, as anyone who witnessed the consequences of Mike Brearley’s decision to grow a bushy beard for England’s tour of Australia in 1979-80 will testify. The analytical England skipper hoped the beard would intimidate his opponents by giving him an abrasive appearance. Unfortunately it also made him look like one of those Victorian army officers who ended up being eviscerated by the dervishes. Brearley might have been capable of scouring frying pans with his chin, but the Aussies weren’t scared. England were hammered. The skipper wisely shed his beard in quick time, long before its presence had MCC members calling for a trial separation.

Rafael BenítezLiverpoolPremier LeagueHarry Pearsonguardian.co.uk