MOSCOW: FIFA president Gianni Infantino has hinted at the possibility of the 2019 and 2020 editions of the Club World Cup taking place in China following a meeting in the Russian capital with Jack Ma, the second richest person in Asia and the founder and executive chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, China’s Xinhua reports.
Alibaba is also a top FIFA sponsor.
FIFA had inked an 8-year partnership deal in 2015 with Alibaba E-Auto, the company’s car manufacturing arm, which was also the first new sponsor to be roped in by FIFA since September 2013.
While in November 2017, Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of the firm, was named “Presenting Partner of the FIFA Club World Cup” till 2022.
Amidst a jam-packed football calendar, FIFA Club World Cup continues to be contested annually by the champion teams of all of FIFA’s six confederations alongside the host nation’s league champions. Real Madrid had won the competition last year in the UAE, and the country will be hosting it once again this year.
It was reported in April this year that FIFA was offered $25 billion for a period of 12 years by a consortium of investors in China, Japan, USA and Saudi Arabia for the survival and the eventual expansion of the competition into a 4-yearly Global Nations League, potentially bringing it on collision course with the UEFA Champions League courtesy its format.
With Alibaba expressing optimism with its heavy investment into the Club World Cup, its sports arm Alisports CEO Zhang Dazhong was confident that China are the favourites to bag the hosting rights of the competition in the next 2 years, which will pave the path for alliances on a larger scale in the future.
“The meeting lasted more than one hour. It was a very exciting dialogue between Chinese entrepreneurs and president of world football’s governing body.
“I believe that the FIFA Club World Cup is not far from China. It is very likely that the 2019 and 2020 tournaments will both go to China, although we still need to go through some procedures.
“FIFA supports China to host the Club World Cup and FIFA is also looking to expand the Club World Cup, which will be a great chance for China,” Zhang, who was present at the meeting, was quoted as saying to Xinhua.
