Inter Milan fans display the grass snake that represents their team at the May 17, 2009 Derby della Madonna. Chinese appliance maker Suning bought a majority stake in Inter Milan for around $300 million in 2016. Credit: Oscar Federico Bodini from Milan, Italy, Creative Commons
Milan, the birthplace of Dolce and Gabbana and Alfa Romeo, is a quintessentially Italian city. But in recent years, if you attended the storied Derby della Madonnina, the match where the city’s soccer rivals face off, one thing might have stood out: each team has had Chinese investors.
In 2016, the Chinese appliance giant Suning bought a majority stake in Inter Milan — one of the most storied names in Italian soccer — for close to $300 million. A year later, Chinese investors spent more than $1 billion to buy and further develop its intra-city rival, AC Milan, from Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
Inter Milan's Suning training center. Credit: Centro Sportivo Suning, Creative Commons
Chinese investors have also bought stakes in the British soccer team Aston Villa, Spain’s Atletico Madrid and Slavia Praha, one of the top soccer teams in Czechia, the former Czech Republic. And wealthy Chinese businessmen have spent generously, singing global soccer sta
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