Chinese Players at BFC

I don't think so. There aren't too many Chinese players that have come to the UK that I can think of. Zheng Zhe played for Charlton and Celtic. Ange Postecoglou brought a few Japanese players to Celtic and they've done very well. A couple now in the Premier League too. It's a market that should probably be looked at a lot more.
 
Seaseaseasider said:
I don't think so. There aren't too many Chinese players that have come to the UK that I can think of. Zheng Zhe played for Charlton and Celtic. Ange Postecoglou brought a few Japanese players to Celtic and they've done very well. A couple now in the Premier League too. It's a market that should probably be looked at a lot more.
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Li Tie played for Everton and I believe Sheffield United, and Sun Jihai had a decent career at LB for City. Fan Zhi Yi played for Palace.
Dong Fang Zhuo was in United's reserves, might have played a couple of times but Chinese football is horrendously bad.

I'll spare you the essay I could write on this, but there's a massive opportunity for lower league teams to do twinning agreements and commercial partnerships with Chinese teams and cities. There are 15 cities in China bigger than London, more like 25 if you include urban sprawl. All it would take is Blackpool agreeing to bring over a couple of youth players to the development squad...or flying out for a pre-season and we'd see huge revenue gains.

Football is massively supported in China but the domestic leagues and national team are a running joke due to corruption, government interference and a poorly co-ordinated attempt at what the Saudi league are doing more successfully now.
Teams like Wolves, Villa, Newcastle get huge shirt sponsorships like 88.com, FunBet not because the Chinese betting companies want to spread their brand globally but because the domestic audience for an average Premier League match will be in the 10's of millions.
Betting is illegal in China but these online sites are a convenient grey area.

https://theathletic.com/2361984/2021/02/03/gambling-premier-league-shirt-sponsors-investigation/ explains it well.

I'm surprised Sadler with his HK connections hasn't done more on the commercial side of things. I emailed the club twice offering to introduce people pro bono and never got a response.

Right, rant over...back to the stupid names! 😄
 
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