When Chinese football fans were still in the 2018 Lunar New Year holiday, they "heard the brake" of their Europeans' pride - Mr. Yonghong Li was about to go bankrupt. And by the evening of February 20, that had become a truth.
It is not wrong to say that Mr. Li is the pride of Chinese football fans. Because he is one of the elite, bringing the image of the Chinese to world football.
The news of Mr. Li's bankruptcy is no different from a painful slape on the Chinese's ambition to "cover" the image of the Chinese on the football map of the five continents.
Mr. Yonghong Li bought AC Milan from "father" Silvio Berlusconi in April 2017 for 876 million USD. He alone has paid off the debt of more than $300 million that Berlusconi's family had borrowed to support the club. Along with that, in the summer of 2017, the Chinese coach invested more than 200 million USD to upgrade the squad for Milan. A dreamlike prospect of reviving the club has revived in the hearts of San Siro fans like that.
But things were only going well for 10 months until Italy's Corriere della Sera exposed where Mr. Li got the money from to be able to "show off". The Chinese boss has taken a loan from Elliott Management to spend up to $300 million in the summer of 2017.
But after borrowing and not having the means to pay, Mr. Li was forced to work hard for the past 10 months to find a way to repay the debt to Elliott. And until he could not pay, this businessman was forced to use the last resort of declaring bankruptcy and selling his assets on China's Taobao page.
Currently, those involved, especially Mr. Yonghong Li, have not yet made any further official statements. But whatever it is, Milan fans have been disillusioned with the club being "reborn".
