Superstar soccer manager Rafael Benitez, who made an unlikely move to China last summer to take charge of the Dalian Yifang club, may be learning the fundamental lesson of Chinese business: Real estate runs the show.
After a round of media speculation, property giant Dalian Wanda announced on New Year’s Day that while the company would continue to invest in soccer in Dalian, a port city in the country’s northeast, it would no longer invest in Dalian Yifang as it had in the past.
The shift leaves the direction of Dalian Yifang in some question, to put it mildly. An explosion of investment in the past year brought in Argentine, Belgian and Venezuelan players as well as Mr. Benitez, who has previously managed the Real Madrid, Chelsea and Liverpool football clubs.
Had Mr. Benitez expected the cash to disappear, his decision to relocate to China’s North Korean border region to manage a middling team—the 162nd best in the world, Football World Rankings generously suggests—might have been less straightforward.
In Chinese football, as in so much else, real estate rules the roost.
Write to Mike Bird at Mike.Bird@wsj.com
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2020-01-02 10:46:00Z
https://www.wsj.com/articles/everything-is-a-chinese-real-estate-play-international-soccer-edition-11577961983
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