League leads race for billion new fans with Chinese partnership

The Football League could become the first foreign league to enter a formal partnership with the Chinese game after being invited into preliminary talks with government officials, The Independent can reveal.

The League was first approached last year by a provincial government wanting to tap into the "authentic" football offered by the League in England below Premiership level. Exhibition matches, education programmes, academy partnerships and merchandise deals are some of the areas where China and the League might combine forces.

Sources stress that talks are in their infancy, with a lot of fact-finding still required on both sides. But senior officials from the province, the identity of which is being kept under wraps, have visited England for discussions. They also attended the Carling Cup final last month as guests of the League.

No club or league has yet managed to secure any sustained income from China, but the Asian superpower, with 1.3 billion people, is widely regarded as having huge potential as a market. Real Madrid are the biggest Western club to have signed a co-operation agreement with a Chinese side - with Beijing Hyundai, in November last year - while Barcelona and others are exploring the area.

British clubs have failed so far to make any impact. A much-vaunted tie-up between Newcastle United and Dalian Shide is now effectively dormant, as is another partnership between Rangers and Shenzhen.

Sheffield United recently became the first foreign club to buy a Chinese side, when they purchased Chengdu - a second-tier club - with an apparently long-term view of boosting their popularity in Asia. But Premiership clubs - including Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal, who all see China as a huge market and have launched Chinese-language websites - have so far failed to turn fledgling popularity into sustainable revenue.

A League delegation, headed by its chairman Lord Brian Mawhinney, will travel to China this summer to explore possibilities with the province in question. Mawhinney has an open mind on what a tie-up might involve but is interested only in "significant and long-term" developments.

Europe's richest clubs are viewed by many fans in China as having a short-term, opportunist interest in their support. Manchester United and Real Madrid both faced indifference and attracted less than capacity crowds on short tours last summer.

In recent years, the Football League has rebranded itself, taken the lead in issues such as transparency and capping salaries, and has established itself as far more competitive than the Premiership.