On February 9, 2022, Beijing time, Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group, and Zhang Lin, vice president, met with the secretary of the Dalian Municipal Party Committee and the mayor, and the two sides reached a consensus on continuing to deepen and promote investment in Dalian, especially continuing to lay out and support Dalian football. Wang Jianlin said: Wanda Group is willing to join hands with Dalian to expand its industrial layout in Dalian, accelerate the construction of key projects, and firmly support the development of Dalian football in accordance with the consensus of both sides.
This also means that the previous news that Wanda will withdraw from Dalian football is self-defeating. Next season, Wanda will still support the development of Dalian football. Although Dalian is relegated to the Central League, because of the presence of Wang Jianlin, he will never allow the Wanda-sponsored team to mix in the Chinese League One. Therefore, under the premise of no accident, Dalian football is bound to continue to blow up the "youth storm" in the Chinese League One next year and achieve the second rush.
As early as 2018, Wanda Group reached a framework agreement with the Dalian municipal government, Wanda invested in football projects in Dalian, and in recent years, it has invested billions of yuan, which does not include the cost of introducing big-name foreign aid such as Benitez, Carrasco, etc., and even does not include the daily salaries of players. And such a high investment has yielded little effect. To a large extent, Wang Jianlin "reneged on his word" because he had previously said that it would take five years to bring Dalian football back to the peak of Asia. Since the beginning of 2018, this year is already the fourth year, there is still one year left, dalian team needs to do only to kill back in the Chinese Super League, so the "five years back to Asia" peak has become an empty phrase.
However, this does not hinder Wang Jianlin's position in the minds of the people of Dalian, he is the savior of Dalian football, which is irrefutable. Without Wang Jianlin and his special feelings for Dalian, I really can't imagine what Dalian football would look like now. Although Wanda has also done real estate projects such as "Sports New City" in Dalian by taking advantage of the opportunity of "investing in football", we need to be clear that with such an investment, no matter which city in China plays football, the leadership of any city will give Wanda one or another preferential policies.
At present, Dalian football is also carrying out "share reform" like teams in other cities. What will be the pattern of Dalian football after the stock reform? What role will Wanda play in this? It's not clear at the moment. With Lao Wang's character, he will not be willing to be a small sponsor so simple. Therefore, under the premise of no accident, next year's Dalian football will still be based on Lao Wang's personal will.
Chinese football has fallen to the bottom, including in the Chinese Super League. Therefore, playing Chinese football clubs has actually reached the point of the bottom. At this time, who can continue to invest in Chinese football and stick to it at the lowest point, in a few years, there should be a profit. What's more, at such a low point, the policies given by local governments will also be greatly tilted. In this year, the companies that can continue to support the operation of football clubs are generally enterprises with their own profitability and certain strength. Looking at it this way, the reform of the Chinese Football Association is not ineffective at all, at least it has played a role in the big wave of sand, removing its dross and leaving its essence.