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Sport, Football, China

Chinese investors' new hobby - buying European soccer clubs

With the Euro 2016 just days away, international eyes are on players and clubs that are in Europe’s top leagues. However,  it is Chinese investors who are spending big money. But they don’t always pay in time.

Logo of the Wanda Group
Logo of the Wanda Group REUTERS/Bobby Yip/File Photo
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China’s nouveau rich and affluent companies are indulging in a new fashion - buying up European football clubs.

When the Suning Group, of billionaire Zhang Jindong bought a majority stake Inter Milan on Monday, ni joined a growing list of Chinese sports-entrepreneurs.

Asia's richest man Wang Jianlin made a major splash when he bought a 20 percent stake in Atletico Madrid in January 2015.

That was the first mainland Chinese investment in a top European football club.

Wang Jianlin’s Wanda Group, that is in real estate, paid 45 million euros for the stake in Atletico.

And a Chinese model car maker, the Rastar Group, whose chairman is billionaire Chen Yasheng, took over Spanish La Liga club Espanyol in January, taking 54 percent for 50 million euros.

Espanyol had debts to the tax office and some suppliers, so the Chinese rescue is applauded.

Meanwhile, business tycoon Tony Xia said he hoped to make Aston Villa the most famous club in China when his reported 80 million Euro offer was accepted last month.

And Chinese energy firm CEFC acquired a majority stake of nearly 60 percent in the Czech First League team last September.

Like Espanyol, Slavia had been in financial difficulties but said in a statement that its acquisition by a Chinese company would lead to "rapid economic stabilization of the club and its subsequent development in the long run."

But the financial lifeline is not guaranteed instantly.

Dutch premier league football club ADO Den Haag had to wait more than a year before the promised money arrived.

Only last April, the club finally received an unpaid investment from its Chinese owner, Hui Wang, majority shareholder of United Vansen International Sports.

When signing the takeover deal in 2014, Wang had promised to invest a considerable amount of money in ADO.

But by January 2016 he still hadn’t made two crucial payments totaling 3.7 million Euro. As a result, the club was facing bankruptcy.

This led the Dutch football association KNVB to announce it could put ADO into administration over the debts it ran up as a result of the missed payments.

 

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