Bayern open China office in Shanghai, aiming to ‘ provide some help’

German powerhouse Bayern Munich opened a Shanghai office on Wednesday in a bid to capitalize on China’s vast fan base and voracious hunger for top- flight soccer training.

Chairman Karl- Heinz Rummenigge announced the opening of the office in the German Center, a complex in Shanghai’s Pudong district, with support from the China Football Association and Shanghai’s soccer and education authorities.

“China is a massive market,” Rum- menigge said through a translator.

“Germany is a soccer powerhouse. We hope we can provide some help in China ... [ and] through such cooperation we can help China boost soccer overall.”

On the same day, German Bundesliga side Wolfsburg also opened new offices in Beijing’s 798 art district. Club General Manager Thomas Roettgermann told AFP it was a “long- term project” for the club.

“At the end of the day, it’s such a huge market that every club which is interested in playing internationally should be in China in order to bring these billions of people on their side and also to earn some money there,” he said.

These efforts are the latest in a spree of European clubs seeking to cash in on China’s explosion of soccer investment.

Despite its 1.4 billion population, China punches well below its weight in soccer, reaching the World Cup only once in its history – in 2002, when the team lost all three group games without scoring a goal.

Last month Spanish super club Barcelona launched its own soccer academy in South China’s Hainan Province by Mission Hills, owner of the world’s big- gest golf resort.

Chinese champions Guangzhou Evergrande have opened an academy in conjunction with Real Madrid for more than 2,000 students, reportedly the world’s largest.

China plans to nearly double the number of publicly run youth soccer schools this year to 20,000, State media reported last month.

Bayern said they want to lend a hand in China’s youth training by setting up more soccer schools in the country.