KUALA LUMPUR — China’s Guangzhou Evergrande will kick off its defense of the Champions League title in an empty stadium after being punished Wednesday by Asia’s football governing body for breaching league rules.
The breaches included filming an Al-Ahli (UAE) closed training session, conducting an unauthorized post-match ceremony and infringing on the commercial rights of Asian Football Confederation sponsors, the AFC said in a statement.
The governing body said further violations relate to safety and security failures during the second leg of the 2015 final, which the club hosted on Nov. 21 against Al-Ahli.
“The AFC disciplinary committee has fined Guangzhou Evergrande a total of $160,000 and ordered the club to play its first match in the 2016 season behind closed doors,” the football body said.
The game in question is Guangzhou Evergrande’s group stage match on Feb. 24 against the winner of East Zone play-off 1. The Chinese Football Association was also fined $10,000.
Guangzhou is China’s most successful club, having won the Chinese Super League the last five years in a row. It also claimed the Asian Champions League twice in the same period.
Martinez joins Guangzhou
Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande has signed Atletico Madrid’s Colombian striker Jackson Martinez for 42 million euros ($46 million), the club said Wednesday, smashing the national transfer record.
Martinez, 29, whom Evergrande called “world class” on its website, is the latest Europe-based player to head to the increasingly wealthy Chinese Super League.
Atletico bought the player from FC Porto, where he had scored an impressive 92 goals in 133 games, but he struggled to establish himself in Spain, scoring just two goals in 15 La Liga appearances.
But Evergrande used the English epithets “goal poacher” and a “fox in the box” to describe him in its Chinese-language statement announcing the deal. The purchase broke the week-old Chinese record buy, Jiangsu Suning’s 28-million-euro purchase of Chelsea’s Brazilian midfielder Ramires.
It took the Chinese Super League’s total spending during the current transfer window to 203.9 million euros, according to website transfermarkt which tracks commercial dealings in the sport, second only to the English Premier League.
Chinese businesses have invested huge sums in football since President Xi Jinping, an avowed fan of the sport, declared that hosting, qualifying, and winning a World Cup were national goals.
In the past, Chinese clubs’ highest-profile international signings tended to be ageing stars in their 30s.
