August 14 – Italian Serie A team making inroads into the Chinese sponsorship market have been dominated recently by deals around Suning-owned Inter Milan, but now Juventus have stepped up their game with China Merchants Bank becoming an Official China Regional Partner and the Official Chinese Bank Partner until 2020.
August 6 – Chinese authorities have pledged to investigate reports that Senegalese striker Demba Ba was subjected to racial slurs by an opponent at the weekend vowing “stern punishment” if the incident is true.
August 1 – Inter Milan has launched another of its Inter Academy projects in China, this time in Hong Kong, taking the number of Chinese academies to seven.
July 4 – Chinese Super League champions Guangzhou Evergrande, on a training visit to Europe, have joined Austria’s FK Austria Wien who are currently in pre-season preparations at their new Generali Arena.
July 2 – China’s Ministry of Education – which has been in charge of schools and university football development since 2014 – has updated the results of its national campus football project, revealing that there are now more than 20,200 specialist football academies across the country.
July 2 – Internazionale has unvelied Lvmama.com as the club’s Official China Travel Partner at a signing ceremony in the new Bellagio hotel in Shanghai, which was opened in June and is owned by the Suning Group which also owns the club.
June 15 – LaLiga has Chinese automobile brand Dongfeng Fengguang as the Official China Regional Automobile Sponsor of LaLiga for the 2018-19 season.
May 25 – The digital streaming market received a significant credibility boost with the China’s MIGU being granted digital and telecoms rights from state broadcaster CCTV for the 2018 World Cup.
May 22 – Arsenal and French legend Thierry Henry is the latest of football’s superstars to benefit from Chinese sponsorship in advance of the Russian World Cup. The World Cup winner in 1998 has been named as the official ambassador of Chinese kitchen appliance manufacturer Vatti.
May 18 – The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has scored a hat-trick of sponsorship deal with Chinese companies. The news is timely boost for AFA, whose dysfunctions where highlighted again by the ‘flirting manual’.
May 12 – The Chinese Super League (CSL) has extended its kit partnership with Nike for a further 10 years – starting in June 2019 and taking them through to 2029.
April 27 – Premier League Liverpool have announced a youth coaching project in Kunming, the capital city of SW China’s Yunnan province, that will initially provide coaching to a selection of schools.
April 17 – The Korean Republic became the fifth Asian Football Confederation (AFC) nation to qualify for the France 2019 Women’s World Cup with a 5-0 win over the Philippines in the fifth place play-off at the Women’s Asian Cup in Jordan.
By Samindra Kunti
April 13 – Ledman Sports, a subsidiary of Ledman Electronics, from China has gained control over Brazilian club Nacional from Manaus for the next 20 years. The Chinese will take over the running of the club with a $1 million fee for the partnership being paid.
April 10 – China became the first nation to join hosts France in the 2019 Women’s World Cup with a 3-0 win over Philippines in a Group A game of the 2018 AFC Women’s Asian Cup at the King Abdullah II Stadium in Amman, Jordan on Monday.