Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Kuala Lumpur: AFC and Tsingtao Brewery Company of China signed a partnership MoU at AFC House in the Malaysian capital on Tuesday.
AFC General Secretary Dato’ Alex Soosay (pictured, centre) and Tsingtao Vice President and Marketing President Wang Ruiyong (right) signed the MoU during a ceremony that preceded the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup 2014 official draws. Simon Thompson (left) of AFC’s marketing partner World Sport Group (WSG) also attended the ceremony.
“We have seen in recent months that Asian club football has risen in stature,” said Dato’ Alex. “We have also seen passion, emotion and drama in all our matches.
“Asian football is on the rise and definitely Chinese football is also developing fast as proved by Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande who won this year’s edition of the AFC Champions League, our premier club competition.
“The year 2013 has also seen a record 110,000 stadium fans attending both legs of the ACL final between Guangzhou Evergrande and FC Seoul of Korea Republic and an average of 280 million TV viewers for the ACL 2013.
“On this encouraging note, we’d like to welcome Tsingtao and we hope our cooperation would bring China closer to Asian football.”
Responding to Dato’ Alex’s encouraging remark, Wang said: “We are happy to note that the signing of our MoU today with the AFC coincides with the draws for the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup 2014.We enter into the cooperation with the AFC as we believe that passion for the Asian game keeps growing each year.
“We also believe that Asian football brings together the best in club football that’s watched by millions of people and this augurs well with the vision of our company which has more than 110 years of history.
“And today we have marked another milestone in our history by joining hands with the AFC to promote Asian football whose global value keeps rising and it is our intention to help more Chinese companies to follow in our footsteps to forge strong partnerships with the AFC.
“We also appreciate the fact that highly successful home club Guangzhou Evergrande are the champions in this year’s AFC Champions League which will generate more fans and greater passion for Asian football. We believe Tsingtao and AFC can work together to take Asian football to the next stage.”
Thompson said in his remark: “WSG is proud to bring Tsingtao to embark on this relationship with the AFC. I believe both the AFC and Tsingtao will complement each other in our commitment to Asian football.
“We are confident that this relationship will forge strong fan interest in the Asian game and we look forward to an active partnership and to more Chinese companies getting involved in Asian football.”