Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung sentenced to six years in jail

Yeung had been found guilty of money-laundering

Carson Yeung, pictured outside court in Hong Kong (AFP/Getty Images)

Birmingham City Football Club owner Carson Yeung was sentenced to six years in jail on Friday by a Hong Kong court for laundering HK$720 million (£55 million).

Yeung, 54, was found guilty on Monday of five counts of money-laundering. He had denied all of the charges.

His sentence follows a high-profile trial that shone a spotlight on how the barber-turned-businessman amassed his fortune.

Yeung was arrested in 2011, two years after he bought the club in October 2009 for £81.5 million.

The businessman had told the court he built his wealth through hairdressing, share trading, property purchases, gambling in the world's casino hub of Macau and other investments.

The former hair stylist to Hong Kong's rich and famous laundered the money between January 2001 and December 2007 through five bank accounts, the court found.

Additional reporting by Reuters