BEIJING: China, backed by its richest man, has struck a deal with FIFA to host an annual ‘China Cup’ from next year, a competition that will pit its national side against three international “first-class” teams — and hopefully pave the way to football glory.

Chinese property tycoon Wang Jianlin, whose Dalian Wanda conglomerate is already a high-level FIFA sponsor, said on Wednesday that his group and the Chinese Football Association would host the contest in the southern city of Nanning: four games played over a week every January.

European clubs often have a break around that time, potentially allowing national sides to pit their best — as China hopes. Eventually, it wants a total of eight teams to play.

“We aim to become the best football competition in Asia,” Wang told reporters in Beijing. “We will use all possible measures to ensure we achieve this.”

China would qualify automatically for a contest that does allow them to earn points for global rankings — an opportunity for a country that wants to climb the FIFA table where it is currently languishing at 81, just behind Zambia and Jordan.

China is preparing to compete for a spot in the 2018 World Cup.

Chinese real estate, entertainment and sports conglomerate Wanda said it would invite “first-class national teams from Europe and the Americas,” so that the Chinese team would learn from playing against high-quality opposition.

Football in China has been plagued by poor performances on the field and match-fixing scandals.

But President Xi Jinping, a self-professed avid soccer fan, has spoken in the past of “three wishes” for China: to qualify for another World Cup since their first and only appearance at the 2002 finals, to host a World Cup, and to eventually win one.

Under Xi’s direction, China’s entrepreneurs and public sector have been investing heavily in the domestic league in a bid to strengthen the national team.

China has since said it wants to turn its team into one of the world’s best by 2050.

“We are duty-bound as people in the soccer industry, as members of the Chinese Football Association, to vigorously develop Chinese football,” said Yu Hongchen, vice president of the Chinese Football Association.

“This is our responsibility and it is also the demand of the times.”

Wanda has been at the forefront of China’s push into the business of sport, building up a sports arm which already owns a 20 percent stake in Spanish football club Atletico Madrid.

Over the last 18 months, Wanda has sealed a series of high-profile sports investments to build up its sports business arm, from the purchase of the organiser of Ironman Triathlon races, World Triathlon Corp to the purchase of Swiss-based sports marketing firm Infront, in a $1.2 billion deal last year.

Wang built a $100 billion business empire founded on shopping malls, before setting his sights on building a global sports conglomerate.

A report in the Financial Times last week said the firm was in talks with European national leagues about the possibility of creating an international club competition that could potentially challenge the hugely popular UEFA Champions League.

Wanda Sports Holdings already claims to be the world’s largest sports company, and has a goal of reaching an annual turnover of $10 billion.

Wanda became a top-tier sponsor of FIFA in March, the first company to join hands with the embattled body after the departure of scandal-hit president Sepp Blatter.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2016