Guangzhou FC, China's most successful football team and former Asian champions, have been thrown out of the country's professional leagues because of "heavy historical debt."
The effective demise of the eight-time Chinese Super League winners, once managed by Italians Marcello Lippi and Fabio Cannavaro, signals the end of an era in the domestic game.
Dozens of Chinese clubs, including fellow former CSL champions Jiangsu Suning, have folded in recent years in debt.
"The club tried various means to gain access to the professional league," said Guangzhou FC, formerly known as Guangzhou Evergrande.
"However, because of the heavy historical debt burden, the funds we raised were insufficient to clear them."
The Chinese Football Association excluded Guangzhou from a list of 49 teams included in the country's professional leagues for 2025.
Guangzhou once dominated Chinese football, winning seven consecutive CSL titles from 2011 to 2017 and two Asian Champions League crowns. But they were relegated to the second tier in 2022 after their majority owner, property developers Evergrande Real Estate Group, ran into financial difficulties as the country's property market slumped. The club's last title came in 2019.
Guangzhou had invested heavily in players, breaking China's transfer record multiple times as Evergrande pumped millions into the squad.
They paid US$46 million (HK$358.8 million), then a record for an Asian team, for Colombian striker Jackson Martinez from Atletico Madrid in 2016. It was in an era of big spending by Chinese teams.
In that period they had a string of illustrious foreign managers including Italian World Cup winners Lippi and Cannavaro, and Brazil's Luiz Felipe Scolari.
In 2020 the club began construction on a new US$1.86 billion stadium that Evergrande said would have capacity for at least 80,000 fans.
The project was cancelled in 2022 as the group racked up US$300 billion in liabilities.
The club were renamed Guangzhou FC in 2021 after new CFA rules forbid teams from including references to companies or sponsors in their names.
Guangzhou finished third in the second-tier China League One in the 2024 season.
"We express our sincerest apologies to fans and everyone that have supported the club," the club said in their statement.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Guangzhou fans celebrate their side's Asian Champions League triumph in 2013. REUTERS
