Southern Expansion have signed a sister club agreement with Chinese Super League club Guizhou Hengfeng in a move they hope will help further strengthen their bid for an A-League franchise.
Southern are expected to announce the relationship on Thursday after Southern’s financial backers, Chinese property giant JiaYuan Group, made a significant investment in Guizhou’s parent company, Hengfeng Real Estate.
Guizhou Hengfeng, based in the city of Guiyang, are last in the 16-team Chinese Super League after 11 matches this season. Hengfeng Real Estate became owners of the club in January 2016. The club changed its name from Guizhou Zhicheng, as well as its colours from green to white, under new ownership.
Southern will lodge its expression of interest with Football Federation Australia on Thursday for A-League and W-League licenses which will see their new club represent St George, Sutherland Shire and the Illawarra.
The FFA will announce the successful two applicants for the 2019-20 season on October 31.
The Chinese Super League has seen an influx of foreign talent in recent years including Oscar and Hulk joining Shanghai SIPG from Chelsea and Zenit St Petersburg respectively for eye-watering fees of approximately $93.5 million and $87 million. While Brazilian star Paulinho’s move from Guangzhou Evergrande to Barcelona for approximately $62.3 million last year broke the record for a player transferred to another league.
Southern chairman Morris Iemma said in a statement the club’s memorandum of understanding with Guizhou Hengfeng, would provide them with a pathway into the lucrative Chinese league.
“We are pleased that we’ve leveraged the commercial strength, football passion and geographic reach of our Chinese financial backers to forge this partnership with Guizhou Hengfeng,” Iemma said.
“Our main objective is for two clubs to provide leadership in football in both Australia and China, building solid links between our respective senior and academy teams and between our two countries. Football provides amazing opportunities for Australia to engage our largest regional trading partner at a social level and with the recent purchase of a large portion of the club, we are now commercial and sporting brothers.
“When we consider the recent efforts by AFL to penetrate the Chinese sporting market, our ownership of a Chinese and, we hope, Australian professional football club creates a ground-breaking partnership for Australian government and FFA to create meaningful relationships, programs and future initiatives.
“We are very excited about the potential to integrate our football with China’s in substantive ways, to ride the economic wave the game is undertaking in the world’s most populous nation.”
The partnership is also expected to see an exchange of players and coaches at youth level as well as the development of training and performance programs. The clubs will also collaborate on science and performance and host youth tournaments and friendly matches in Southern’s region and Guiyang.
Southern head of football and former Socceroo Craig Foster said it was critical the club’s young talent was exposed to tournament play and competitive environments at an earlier age as happens regularly in Europe.
“So our sister club relationship means Southern’s junior talent, who are playing in our free youth academy, can regularly experience different cultures and playing styles they will face later as an international and in Asian club competition,” Foster said.
“We also see an exchange of technical staff as adding value to Southern, providing a unique pathway from the A-League and W-League to Asian football for our practitioners. Just as players are transferred abroad, opening up places for young talent, so too our football staff.
“We want ambitious people at Southern and to give Australians an opportunity to participate in the growing, lucrative and increasingly high level Asian game.”
