Spanish soccer club buys stake in Chinese university club

Players, officials and guests pose for a group photo on the pitch at the campus of Beijing Institute of Technology after the press conference. [Photo by Liu Shanshan/chinadaily.com.cn]

For La Liga, Spain's top professional football division, China is the key overseas market, according to Sergi Torrents Jou, the General Manager of La Liga Greater China. "We are seeing a tremendous interest in football, and an enormous potential for growing," said Sergi.

The bridges that have been built between BIT and Reus are very important to help Chinese soccer in particular and soccer in general to grow in China, Sergi added.

The BIT-Reus deal goes beyond the soccer sector and sports as it promotes good values - respect, solidarity, fair play, playing as a team, and provides platform for young people from China and Spain to receive education, share objectives and learn from one another, said Carmen Gil Moris, the general secretary of the Education, Cultural and Sport Council of the Spanish Embassy to China. "Through working together, we can learn together, and close our cultures," said Carmen.

Collaborations in sports, especially in football, have long been building bridges to help improve China-Spain relations. Sergio Pérez Saiz, the head economic and commercial counselor of the Spanish Embassy to China, hailed the agreement as "a very good example of the excellent moment of bilateral relations."

"Spanish sports to China had a world record increase of up to 5,000 million euros ($5,296 million) in 2016," said Sergio. He added that the Chinese investment in Spain also sustained a very high pace in 2016 and some went to football clubs in Spain.

As the first university team in China to play in a professional league, BIT FC was founded in 2000 and all the players are university students from Beijing Institute of Technology. The team has achieved numerous successes, winning nine champions of the Chinese University Tournament during the last 17 years. The team has also represented China in the World University Games on various occasions.

The BIT team started to play in League Two in 2006 with a team of student players before it gained promotion to League One. The team, funded solely by the university, was relegated to League Two in 2015 due to the recent increase in investment and the acquisitions of big players in other Chinese clubs.

As China welcomed a series of soccer reform plan in 2016, the BIT FC decided to add value to the club in line with the new plan by introducing foreign capital and knowledge for grassroots football and finally formed an alliance with CF Reus and the CSSB company.

CSSB bought CF Reus in 2013 when the club was competing in Second B in the Spanish football league, and established the same system and methodology to develop youth academy as what they did in FC Barcelona. Two years later, Reus was promoted to Second Division A for the first time since it founded in 1909.