| Full name | Chongqing Lifan Football Club 重庆力帆足球俱乐部 |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 19 August 2000 as Chongqing Lifan |
||
| Ground | Yongchuan Sports Center (Capacity: 25,000) |
||
| Chairman | Yin Mingshan (尹明善) | ||
| Manager | Lawrie McKinna | ||
| League | China League One | ||
| 2011 | China League One, 8th | ||
|
|||
Chongqing Lifan, are a professional Chinese football club who currently plays in the Chinese League One division. They play their home games at the 58,680 seater Chongqing Olympic Sports Center in Chongqing and are owned by the Chongqing based Lifan Group, which manufactures motorcycles, cars and spare parts. Originally called Qianwei (Vanguard) Wuhan and formed in 1995 to take part in the recently developed fully professional Chinese football league system. They would quickly rise up to the top tier and experience their greatest achievement of winning the 2000 Chinese FA Cup and coming fourth within the league, however since then they have struggled to replicate the same success and have twice been relegated from the top tier in their history.
Contents |
The clubs predecessor was called Qianwei and was created to take part in the recently developed fully professional Chinese football league system. They would take part at the bottom of the Chinese league pyramid in the third tier and by the 1995 league season come fourth within the league and gain promotion to the second tier.[1] Within the second tier they would quickly gain significant funding from the local government and the Huandao Group, which in turn also saw the club change its name to Qianwei Huandao to represent this. With significant investment coming into the team they would buy several former Chinese internationals such as Feng Zhigang and Xu Tao to strengthen the squad. This would quickly pay off and the club would win the second tier title and promotion into the top tier for the first time at the end of the 1996 league season.[2]
In the top tier the owners decided that the club needed to affiliate itself with a major reign and would decide to move nearby to Chongqing and into the Datianwan Stadium. This was followed by more Chinese internationals such as Jiang Feng and Han Jinming joining the team and ensuring the club stayed up at the end of the season. Ensuring that the club remain the only team within the reign the club would go on to merge and essentially take over lower league club Chongqing Hongyan the following season. This was then followed by a complete takeover of the entire club by the Lifan Group who bought the club for 55,800,000 yuan on August 19, 2000 and renamed the club Chongqing Lifan. While all of this was happening the clubs manager Lee Jang-Soo was ensuring that the club would gradually improve each successive season and provide the club with their greatest achievement of winning the 2000 Chinese FA Cup for the first time in the clubs history. Chongqing Lifan would then be eligible to enter their first continental competition when they competitied in the 2001–02 Asian Cup Winners' Cup and with Stefano Impagliazzo as their new manager he would lead the club to a semi-finals position where the club lost to Anyang Cheetahs before ending the competition in fourth after losing to Al Sadd in a third place match.[3]
See also Yunnan Hongta
In 2003 Chongqing Lifan was relegated and the club decided to buy Yunnan Hongta with the merger allowing the club to remain in the top division. The former Chongqing Lifan team became the new formed Hunan Xiangjun club that was relegated from the second division Jia League. Despite finishing bottom for both the first and the second season of the CSL, they still participated in the 2006 season as relegation had been cancelled for the first two seasons. However, in 2006, they finished last again and were finally relegated for 2007. Their best ever finish in the old First Division was fourth. As recently as 2002, Chongqing Lifan participated in Asian Cup Winner's Cup, but lost to Al Sadd. Anyang Cheetahs defeated Chongqing in the previous year. Wei Xin was Chongqing's best player.
All-time League rankings
| Season | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Position | 4 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 6 | 13 1 | 12 2 | 14 2 | 15 | 4 | 2 | 16 | 15 | 8 |
As of 25 March 2011[4]
Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
|
|
|
| Position | Staff |
|---|---|
| Head coach | Lawrie McKinna |
| Assistant coaches | Xu Jianye Zhang Hao |
| Goalkeeping coach | Nico de Bree |
| Team physician | Yin Xijun Zhang Jian |
Source: Club's Official Site
|
||||||||