Chinese football was thrown into disarray yesterday as the owners of reigning Chinese Super League champions Jiangsu FC announced they would cease operations with immediate effect.
A post on Jiangsu's official WeChat account expressed hope of new backers or that a "company of insight" would be willing to consult on the team's future.
The announcement stated all of owners Suning Group's football clubs, including the hugely successful Jiangsu Suning Women, would "cease operations from today."
The Nanjing-based retailer, one of China's biggest and which also owns Italian Serie A club Inter Milan, last month said it intended to focus on core businesses, leaving non-retail assets at risk.
These assets include Jiangsu FC, which won the Chinese Super League title in November for the first time with a playoff win over eight-time champions Guangzhou Evergrande.
That victory was the pinnacle of a run by a once cashed-up club previously coached by former England manager Fabio Capello, and which in the summer of 2019 attempted to sign Gareth Bale, formerly the world's most expensive player, from Real Madrid.
The squad that clinched the title and a place in this year's Asian Champions League featured Brazilian winger Alex Teixeira, who chose to make a 50-million euro (HK$468.2 million) switch to Jiangsu in 2016 over interest from English Premier League giants Liverpool.
The club blamed an "overlap of various uncontrollable elements" for its decision but said that it was "continuing to seek, in a wider scope, interested parties for its future development of the club."
The Jiangsu announcement comes days after Chinese FA Cup winners Shandong Luneng had their expulsion from the Asian Champions League confirmed by the Asian Football Confederation due to "overdue payables."
Jiangsu cease operations just months after winning the title. AFP
