October 12 – You can tell that a country is getting serious about football when a beer company launches a special brew for the club’s fans.
Chinese Super League (CSL) side Chongqing Dangdai Lifan is partnering with a local brewer in Chongqing to produce and distribute the beer which will be packaged in the club’s red and blue colours and feature the club’s ‘Fight for Chongqing’ slogan.
Founded in 1994, Dangdai Lifan is a relative newcomer to the CSL having been promoted in 2015.
Club vice president Dong Yihui told Chinese media: “We need to come up with more new business plans to cover the cost of our further development.” The beer brand is expected to be available in the next few weeks (presumably once it finishes brewing) but fans who don’t like beer won’t miss out on the party.
“Apart from the beer, we will launch a special Chinese liquor soon,” said Dong.
Li Tie’s new challenge
Former Everton and Liaoning midfielder Li Tie who most recently has been head coach of CSL side Hebei China Fortune and an assistant coach of the national team, has taken on a new coaching challenge with second tier Wuhang Zall.
Majority owned by the Wuhan Zall Development Holding Co., the club has invested Y500 million ($76 million) in a bid to gain promotion to the Super League but the owners felt that not enough progress was being made and have turned to Li Tie to change that.
New club president Wang Xiaosong, who is also the CEO of the online travel agency Lvmama, a subsidiary of Joyu, one of the club’s major sponsors, said that he aimed to turn Wuhan Zall into a top level competitive club in the next five years.
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