Opinion | How a Spanish third division football game highlights potential perils of Chinese takeover spree
With football clubs seemingly the must-have item for Chinese investors of varying legitimacy, it’s hard not to feel that many of these deals will end in tears
I’m guessing not many readers will be pumped up for the Jumilla v Lorca game on Sunday. Few people outside of Murcia in Spain will have even heard of the football teams.
But the Segunda B game will supposedly be broadcast to a potential audience of 300 million in China, since both clubs are now Chinese-owned.
That’s the claim from Jumilla at least. The word ‘potential’ is rather important: I couldn’t find any listings for it and if it is on somewhere, I strongly doubt a quarter of the population is going to tune in for a Spanish third division match.
These are the sort of wild claims that get thrown around when Chinese ‘investors’ come to town. Jumilla have branded the game the ‘Shanghai derby’ since both sets of owners are from there. They have moved it to Real Murcia’s 31,000-seat stadium, though both clubs struggle to attract 1,000 fans most games.
Jumilla’s Chinese owners are Tang Hui and Li Xiang, former La Liga commentators on PPTV in China. The face of Lorca is Xu Genbao, who managed China in the 90s. He wants nothing to do with this ‘Shanghai derby’ nonsense.
