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Italian Serie A
SportFootball

Concerns for Inter Milan as Suning to ‘focus on retail’

  • Italian league leaders looking for investment in club ahead of group’s decision to ‘close down’ non-retail businesses
  • Company owns Chinese Super League champions, while its PPTV arm is in rights disputes with English Premier League and Serie A

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Inter Milan's Romelu Lukaku wears a special edition shirt featuring his name written in Chinese to celebrate the Lunar New Year in the club’s game against Lazio. Photo: Reuters
Jonathan White

Chinese giant Suning Group’s decision to concentrate on its retail business has raised questions over its widespread involvement in football.

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The company owns Inter Milan and Chinese Super League champions Jiangsu FC, while they have been China broadcast rights holders for the English Premier League, Italian Serie A and the CSL.

Owner Zhang Jindong told Suning staff of the decision to shift their focus, as reported by China’s Titan Sports online on Friday.

“We should focus our main battlefield, initiate subtraction, redraw the battle line,” Titan Sports quoted Zhang as saying. “We will focus on retail business resolutely, close and cut down our business irrelevant to retail business without hesitation.”

Suning have owned Italian Serie A side Inter Milan since 2016 as well as expanding into Chinese broadcast rights for several European leagues, including the English Premier League and Italy’s Serie A, through its PPTV and PPLive television arm.

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The company lost rights to English football last year after a dispute over an unpaid payment, with a similar dispute with Serie A following this month. The situation of the CSL rights for the coming season is unconfirmed.
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