China’s Ledman Extends Nation’s Football Influence into South America

The Chinese tech firm – already relatively small sponsors of the Chinese Super League (estimated at ~US$1.7m) – will take over the running of minor league Brazilian football club, Nacional, for the next 20 years. Commercial control has come with a US$1 million upfront fee.

Prior to this deal, Ledman Sports has been involved in Brazil via BSI Soccer, a Brazil-based player agency owned by former footballer Fabio de Souza, which manages players in China since August 2017.

This time, Nacional has been in negotiations with the Chinese for a very brief two months but at an EGM (extraordinary general meeting) last week, fans of the supporter-controlled club approved the third-party investment unanimously. “We have gotten to a proposal of 20 years of outsourced management in the football department, leasing the Barbosa Filho Training Center, with investment in the club’s headquarters and in the field of the academy,” explained Roberto Peggy, the club’s president.

“Now, we are set to finalise the contractual agreement, that is, the draft is already on its way back from China and, everything being agreed, I believe that in the coming weeks we should celebrate the signing and start the partnership in earnest,” added Peggy.

Ledman Sports has ambitious plans to take the oldest Amazon club to the Brasileirao, the nation’s elite-tier league, where it last played in 1985. And with this deal – on top of their ownership of the A-League’s Newcastle Jets and  Portugal’s second-tier club, Liga Pro – Ledman has enabled China’s football tentacles insinuate into yet another football-hungry continent.