A US$4.6 billion (S$6.45bn) deal struck earlier this year between Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Suning Appliances could potentially see Jiangsu Sainity ruled ineligible for the Champions League.

In August this year, Suning, which owns the Chinese Super League (CSL) club Jiangsu Sainity, sold a 19.99 percent stake in their group company to Alibaba for a reported $4.6bn, making Alibaba the second largest shareholder.

Before this latest acquisition, Alibaba had already acquired a 50 % stake in this year’s AFC Champions League (ACL) winners and five-time defending Chinese Super League champions, Guangzhou Evergrande, under a deal struck last year. That means Alibaba now has two CSL clubs under its ownership. 

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), however, has strict rules when it comes to cross-ownership of clubs, especially those competing in the same competition.

Article 15.3 of the AFC Statutes states: “The Member Association shall ensure that no natural or legal person (including holding companies and subsidiaries) exercise third-party control over more than one club or group whenever the integrity of any match or competition could be jeopardised.”

There are interesting times ahead as this will be the case next year with Guangzhou and Jiangsu both qualifying automatically for the ACL.

Source: fourfourtwo

Proofread by John Devlin