Soccer
21:36, 20-Feb-2019
City Football Group makes joint purchase of Sichuan Jiuniu FC of China League Two
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City Football Group (CFG), the owner of Premier League Champions Manchester City FC, has jointly purchased Sichuan Jiuniu FC of China League Two with UBTECH and China Sports Capital, it was announced on Wednesday.
The third-tier team Sichuan Jiuniu is the seventh male soccer club in which CFG has invested. They are also shareholders of New York City FC in U.S. Major League Soccer, Melbourne City FC in Australia's A-League, Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan's J1 League, Club Atletico Torque in Uruguay's Primera Division and Girona FC in Spain's La Liga. Besides, they invested in some women's soccer teams as well.
In recent years, huge sums of Chinese capital have been invested in European soccer, but the inverse actions were rare. The more common form of cooperation was in foreign clubs helping Chinese clubs to establish youth training systems.
As CFG's parent company Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Limited sold 13.79 percent of its shares to China's state-backed CMC Football Holdings Limited in the last two years, CFG worked well with Chinese Ministry of Education in a program to develop campus soccer.
Regarding the other purchasers, China Sports Capital was jointly established by CMC Inc. (the new name of CMC Holdings) and Sequoia China in 2017, and UBTECH, a Chinese humanoid robotic company which has cooperated with Man City FC since 2016, is the biggest shareholder of Jiuniu FC and their CEO Zhou Jian is now the president of the club.
Established in 2017, Jiuniu FC ranked in the last third of 26 teams in League Two season 2018 and surprisingly reached the 2018 China Football Association (CFA) Cup last eight. With another Sichuan club Annapurna FC being promoted to League One as the winners in last season, Jiuniu FC have the confidence to go further.
"We believe strongly in the future of soccer in China," said City Football Group chief executive Ferran Soriano. "We are making a long-term, sustainable commitment to grow and develop Sichuan Jiuniu FC and to nurture Chinese soccer talent."
(Cover photo: The logo of Sichuan Jiuniu FC /VCG Photo)