On December 5th 2016, Shenzhen Kaisa Group Football Club (Shenzhen FC), a team from the Chinese Football Association(CFA) China League, held a press conference to announce that the famous Swedish football manager Sven Goran Eriksson would be taking charge for next season. The Shenzhen footballers, who were on holiday, were notified to return to the club on 4th December and begin pre-season training today, 6th December.
On 28th November, Eriksson and his team arrived in Shenzhen where they explored the Xili base used by Shenzhen FC and decided that they would continue to use that facility. Shenzhen FC need to strengthen their squad and will need to sign goalkeepers, centre backs, wing backs and defensive midfielders. These will be mainly players from the Chinese Super League. It also has to be decided by Eriksson and the club whether or not to change the three foreign players who are not in training at the moment.
Last season Shenzhen FC failed to get promoted to the Chinese Super League despite an investment of 0.25 billion Yuan. It is believed that this time Shenzhen will invest more than 0.4 billion Yuan in efforts to gain promotion to the Chinese Super League because of the fierce competition from other football teams such as Beijing Enterprises Group, Dalian, Guizhou Renhe and Wuhan FC. Some clubs are even considering bringing in new players from lower ranking CSL teams.
Proofread by Sean O Diobhilin