Monday, February 13, 2017

"Is China on a collision course with world football’s governing body?"

TC:
This raises a broader concern about multiple ownership and conflicts of interest. Indeed, reliable reports indicate that the English Premier League has hired investigators to examine China’s portfolio of English club acquisitions for connections to the government. Standards of governance within China are often opaque, an issue compounded when the state is involved and the country’s investors are moving capital across international boundaries.

Ideally, FIFA should intervene to provide guidance and leadership. The problem is, football’s world governing body appears to be rather in thrall to China at the moment.

The organisation’s scandals of recent years have mired it in financial difficulty, something Chinese property group Wanda admits it took advantage of