“With or without the Asian Cup we plan to finish the stadium as planned,” a construction worker said. Quite when football of any description takes place there is unclear. The Chinese Super League is ...

One clear example is Chinese Super League side Guangzhou Evergrande, whose new stadium was supposed to rival the best architecture in the world, now lies derelict without ever having been finished.

A £1.36billion stadium that was supposed to be bigger than Wembley was left half-built for around two years. In 2020, the most successful side in Chinese football history, Guangzhou FC, began ...

In the club game, the decline has been just as precipitous with Jiangsu FC, owned by Inter Milan proprietors the Suning Group, folding a few months after winning the 2020 Chinese Super League title.