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Zhu ties Maradona to Reds bid
By Lydia Chen |
May 15, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
BELIEVE it or not, Diego Maradona may be the next coach of England's Liverpool Football Club.
The soccer legend inked a secret pact to cooperate with the Shanghai soccer tycoon Zhu Jun if the Chinese multi-millionaire successfully beats his rivals to own the Reds.
Maradona, the current manager of the Argentine national team and widely acknowledged as the best football player of all time, signed the cooperation deal with Zhu's representatives on Thursday morning in a hotel in Buenos Aires, Zhu confirmed to Sina.com yesterday.
But details of the deal were closely kept, the popular news Website portal said.
Zhu will send several senior officials of his Shanghai Shenhua Football Club, which competes in the China Super League, to Argentina again to meet with people from Maradona's side, the report added.
The dealings with Maradona came a week after reports that Zhu is angling to clinch a mega-deal of up to 800 million British pounds (US$1.18 billion) to buy the 118-year-old club.
Yet negotiations are still underway and no bottom-line offer has been made by the 44-year-old Zhu, founder of The9 Ltd, a top Chinese online gaming firms that is listed on the United States' Nasdaq stock market.
Unnamed insiders told the Website that the move would "help (Zhu) win the hearts of the England fans and gain leverage in the buying talks" and that Maradona's clout in the soccer world would help attract world-class players to the Reds if he became coach.
But some Chinese fans speculated that Zhu was simply seeking publicity and others questioned his finances. His assets have been shrinking since The9 last year lost China's dealership of World of Warcraft, one of the most popular online games.
The soccer legend inked a secret pact to cooperate with the Shanghai soccer tycoon Zhu Jun if the Chinese multi-millionaire successfully beats his rivals to own the Reds.
Maradona, the current manager of the Argentine national team and widely acknowledged as the best football player of all time, signed the cooperation deal with Zhu's representatives on Thursday morning in a hotel in Buenos Aires, Zhu confirmed to Sina.com yesterday.
But details of the deal were closely kept, the popular news Website portal said.
Zhu will send several senior officials of his Shanghai Shenhua Football Club, which competes in the China Super League, to Argentina again to meet with people from Maradona's side, the report added.
The dealings with Maradona came a week after reports that Zhu is angling to clinch a mega-deal of up to 800 million British pounds (US$1.18 billion) to buy the 118-year-old club.
Yet negotiations are still underway and no bottom-line offer has been made by the 44-year-old Zhu, founder of The9 Ltd, a top Chinese online gaming firms that is listed on the United States' Nasdaq stock market.
Unnamed insiders told the Website that the move would "help (Zhu) win the hearts of the England fans and gain leverage in the buying talks" and that Maradona's clout in the soccer world would help attract world-class players to the Reds if he became coach.
But some Chinese fans speculated that Zhu was simply seeking publicity and others questioned his finances. His assets have been shrinking since The9 last year lost China's dealership of World of Warcraft, one of the most popular online games.
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