In order to expand its sports business the Wanda group is ready to host China’s first official football tournament. Wang Jianlin’s company has a broad portfolio of investments with great interests in the world of football such as a 70% stake in Infront and 20% of the Spanish team Atletico Madrid.
The tournament will be hosted in January every year and first-class teams from Europe and the Americas will be invited to participate. In the 2017 edition of China’s first official football tournament hosted by Wanda Sports Holding, the sports-business arm of Wanda, four national teams will face each other to win the trophy, we are talking about Chile, China, Island, and Croatia. Wanda’s chairman Jianlin believes that in order for China’s national team to be more competitive there’s a great need to play games against well known international sides.
Although the sports side of this business seems to be very important for the Chinese company the same is seriously seeking to make profits by broadcasting rights, and selling related goods and other incentives as well. FIFA came in support of this innovative project. Wanda Sports Holding signed a top-level sponsor partnership contract through 2030 with FIFA in March.
In order to realize China’s first official football tournament, Wanda group had to go through around 100 institutional meetings with the authorities involved in this project. One of the main objectives of this tournament is to provide the Chinese viewers with a great show, also because most of the time the Chinese audience is unable to view the great European football due to the different time-zone.
