Wanda’s World Cup offensive not just bandwagon jumping, insists CEO as it dominates the hoardings in Russia

But while those oft-repeated comments about the country qualifying for, hosting and winning the World Cup have framed every conversation about China’s involvement in the sport ever since, one entity is claiming their involvement in the global game is independent of the race by corporate China to jump on the football bandwagon.

“At Wanda we did the partnership purely for our own business concerns and considerations,” Yang told South China Morning Post having sidestepped the issue of China’s future hosting of the tournament. “Sports is our business and it was a natural business decision.

“Wanda has a deep heritage in football. There’s a passion and the DNA within us to grow the sport and help China and that’s what we did and that’s what we have been doing and we continue to do that.

“The Fifa partnership just enables us to have another great platform on which to do that. To bring the expertise and to bring the resources and to bring the best matches into China and to give the Chinese fans a world class experience, and to allow the China team to compete and play with world class teams.

“That’s really something we are committed to doing because as a business we’re able to do that. We have the capability.”