November 22 – Czech first division club SK Slavia Prague have sold a majority stake to China’s Sinobo Group, in a link that will see them work on a variety of initiatives with Sinobo’s Chinese Super League club Beijing Sinobo Guoan.
Sinobo will also take the naming rights of Slavia Prague’s Eden Arena, which hosted the 2013 UEFA Super Cup, which will become the Sinobo Stadium.
Founded in 1892, Slavia Prague has built a reputation for youth development and in 2017 signed a partnership with the Chinese Football Association and set up the its first European football collaboration centre.
The new partnership will see co-operation with the development of academies in China as well as player scouting, commercial development, branding and setting a standard of operation and management for both the men’s and women’s first teams.
Sinobo Group is a relative newcomer to football only buying Beijing club at the beginning of 2017. Jinhui Zhou, president of Sinobo Group, said at a pre announcement that the two cities shared many similarities in history, architecture and culture as well as in football culture and fan culture.
Sinobo Group has invested in the construction of the Beijing 2022 project, Taizicheng winter sports town and will also take part in the running of the town. Mixing real estate development and sports is in the Sinobo business model.
Zhou said he thought the Slavia Prague club would be the city of Prague’s calling card in China, allowing more Chinese people to get a deeper understanding of the Czech Republic’s capital city.
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