Xinhua News Agency, Chengdu, February 21 (reporter Li Hualiang, Xue Chen, Wang Haoming) a family of industrial intelligence and service robot enterprises, a rapidly rising Premier League in recent years, a new army in China’s low-level league…… These three seem to be out of reach for eight or pole, and their respective cities are far apart. Recently, they have come together. How did the “chemical reaction” occur between them?
You must choose Science and Technology, City Football Group and China jianteng sports industry fund recently held a press conference in Chengdu, Sichuan, announcing the joint acquisition of China-B Sichuan Jiuniu football club. According to relevant sources who did not want to be named, the proportion of large shareholder’s holding is relatively close, and you must choose the largest shareholder among them.
Headquartered in Shenzhen, youzhixuan Technology was established in 2012. It is a high-tech enterprise integrating artificial intelligence and service robot research and development, platform software development and application, and product sales. China jianteng sports industry fund was jointly established by Chinese culture group and Sequoia Capital in 2017, focusing on investment in sports industry, especially the establishment of IP and long-term sustainable development, it is the focus of its investment.
City Football Group owns many football clubs around the world, especially Manchester City, the new Premier League rising in recent years. In addition to Manchester City, it also includes Australian Super Melbourne City, Major League New York City, Japan J League Yokohama F. Marinos and other clubs, most of which are in the top leagues in their respective locations. However, the acquired Sichuan Jiuniu was established soon, and it entered the big list of China B in the 2018 season, ranking the 24th in the end.
Why did you choose to buy a low-level league team? Zhou Jian, CEO of Youbi technology, said: “Sichuan Jiuniu’s main player is Sichuan nationality. We are very optimistic about the future development potential of Sichuan Jiuniu. Compared with yesterday and today, we care more about tomorrow. I think we have this opportunity to lay a good foundation and step by step.”
In the view of City Football Group CEO Feran Soriano, this acquisition is “a natural extension of the existing strategy” of City Football Group “. He said: “This investment in China has always been our dream. We have been working towards this goal continuously in the past four or five years. We firmly believe that China has great opportunities, can play an important role in the world football field. This is a very good starting point. We think Sichuan needs an excellent football club. Our goal is to develop Sichuan’s football industry and hope to train some young football players, to cultivate this market.”
Among the three acquiring parties, excellent technology seems to be the most “distant” from the sports field, but in fact, this technology company has already set foot in the football field, it signed the strategic cooperation agreement with Manchester City for the first time in October, 2016, and announced the continuation of strategic cooperation in August, 2018. Excellent robot products have appeared in Manchester City’s home court and activities planned for Manchester City fans.
“The development of football has no longer relied on simple hard training as in the past, but also needs the support of technology and data behind it. We should look at football from a cross-industry perspective.” Zhou Jian gave an example: “For example, in the future, artificial intelligence system can help coaches manage players and quantify the impact of players’ behaviors on goals by learning a large number of competition data in daily training, at the same time, the overall situation of the players is evaluated and their future performance is predicted. In actual matches, there is also an opportunity to help the coach formulate and update the game strategy in time.”
According to Zhou Jian, among the three parties jointly acquired, excellent science and technology and China jianteng sports industry fund will be mainly responsible for commercialization and football popularization, city Football Group will be mainly responsible for the team’s work in professional fields such as competitions and training.
In the view of the acquirer, “youth training” and “sustainability” are the key words of Sichuan Jiuniu’s future development. Feran Soriano said: “I hope to help Sichuan Jiuniu become one of the top clubs in China. This cannot be achieved overnight, so we will support the development of Sichuan Jiuniu in a sustainable way. We will have a correct rhythm to provide the club with the necessary resources to keep it steady every step. Our investment is not only money, but also experts, professional knowledge, technology, etc. We will ensure that athletes can receive the same training as in Manchester City, and can reach the same training level as our other clubs.”
“Chinese football can not break the future by taking money, but needs to establish a comprehensive, professional and healthy system starting from youth training.” Zhou Jian said that in addition to continuously providing excellent players, youth training is also an important way to support long-term development in the future. Chinese football often invests heavily at the club level, but excellent science and technology and other partners believe that we should start from the foundation, truly move towards the capital market, self-actualize, and achieve a longer-term development in the future.