Yuexiushan Stadium no relation Peoples Republic of China
Guangzhou Football Club, formerly known as Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club, is a Chinese professional football club based in Guangzhou, Guangdong that competes in China League One, the second tier of Chinese football. They play their home games at the Yuexiushan Stadium. The club's majority shareholders are the Evergrande Real Estate Group (56.71%) and the e-commerce company Alibaba Group (37.81%), while the rest of the shares are traded in the Chinese OTC system.
The club was founded in 1954, and won several second tier titles before turning professional in 1993. Their results improved, leading to a runners-up spot in China's top tier. Unable to improve upon these results, the club went through a period of stagnation and decline before they experienced a brief revival, when they won the 2007 second division. In 2009, the club was embroiled in a match-fixing scandal and was subsequently relegated. In 2010, the Evergrande Real Estate Group decided to purchase the club and pumped significant funds into the team. They immediately won promotion and gained their first top tier title in the 2011 season. The club is the only Chinese football club to win the AFC Champions League twice, in 2013 and 2015. The club is also the first Chinese club to participate in the FIFA Club World Cup, making its first appearance in 2013. Between 2011 and 2017, Guangzhou won seven consecutive Chinese Super League titles, before being relegated in 2022 due to financial problems.
According to Forbes report from 2016, the team was valued at US$282 million, the most out of all Chinese football teams, with a reported operating loss of over US$200 million in 2015.
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