After 51 years at the iconic Vincente Calderon stadium, La Liga’s hipster favorites Atletico Madrid made the move across town this month to their brand new ground, the Wanda Metropolitano. 

Boasting 68,000 seats – an increase from the Calderon by just over 10,000 – the world’s first “real mobile broadband experience” and commemorative plaques of legendary players, the stadium is cutting edge and built to the high standards demanded of modern sporting venues. 

However, it does have one totally unique feature: the sponsor. Until now, Chinese brands have been limited to shirt sponsors, which are temporary and have no actual involvement in the club, but by putting their name on the stadium, Wanda Group has become the first major Chinese company to have a tangible, visible presence in European football’s top flight leagues.

Wanda’s actual involvement with Spanish football goes back to 2013, when they launched the “China’s Future Football Stars” project, which annually takes 30 promising Chinese youth players and sends them to Spain to take part in a three-year development course that includes both skill training and cultural development. 

In 2015, Wanda's partnership with Atletico Madrid officially began, with the Chinese company becoming 20 percent shareholders in the team, and it was the 2016 deal in which Wanda became the partner in the development of the stadium that made the group known to Europeans – a move that Wanda Group will hope to replicate on a global scale following another 2016 partnership deal with FIFA, which made them a sponsor on all international events until 2030.

While this may seem like just another big money investment from overseas, the choice to work with Atletico Madrid in this venture differs in two significant ways. 

The first is that, up until now, Chinese investors have been willing to stay on the sidelines in ways others have not: Roman Abramovich is regularly seen at Stamford Bridge and Real Madrid had to remove the cross from their logo after brokering a deal with Abu Dhabi but, with the exception of a time change for the 2017 Milan derby – moved back from midday to 3pm CET in order to make it primetime in CST – the Chinese owners of Internazionale and A.C. have preferred to remain as anonymous as possible.

Secondly, there’s the stadium itself. The Metropolitano is named after Atletico Madrid’s original stadium which was built in 1923. 

To many, harking back over half a century could be seen as a combination of nostalgic posturing and a heavy handed attempt at immediately creating a sense of home rather than letting it develop naturally, but, when compared to other brandings – Etihad Stadium, Signal Iduna Park, Turk Telecom Arena etc. – Wanda’s stands out as being connected to the club’s lineage. 

The Wanda represents the future, the Metropolitano represents the past and together they form the stadium in the present.

Besides for being where Atletico Madrid play their home games, on Wednesday, the stadium was announced as being the location for the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final and the club hope to make it the permanent location of the Copa Del Rey final, in a move that looks to make the Metropolitano into the Spanish equivalent of Wembley Stadium, which hosts the FA Cup every year. 

Outside of football, the stadium can also be used for track-and-field events, with a custom running track that can be temporarily constructed above the front row seats.