DFL opens representative office for China in Beijing
27 March 2019 – The DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga has opened its representative office in the Chinese capital of Beijing. With the new branch, the DFL aims to make direct contact with football fans and partners in the most populous country in the world as football continues to enjoy a huge popularity in China.
One of the first measures will be the “Bundesliga Legends Tour” in April with Jürgen Klinsmann. The German World Cup and European Championship winner will represent the Bundesliga in Beijing from 11 to 15 April. Klinsmann will share his passion for German football with the fans and media and will explain the meaning behind the international Bundesliga slogan “Football as It’s Meant to Be”, the hashtag of which was shared more than 400 million times in China last year. Various clubs of the Bundesliga already have representative offices in China such as Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Mönchengladbach, FC Bayern München, FC Schalke 04 and VfL Wolfsburg.
Patrick Stüber will head the new DFL representative office in Beijing. He has been active with the DFL Group since 2007 and works there in international marketing with a focus on media rights and digital media. Sunny Sun, Head of Marketing & Business Development China, and Bo Zong, Senior Project Manager China for Content and Digital Projects, will be among those who will be supporting Stüber. Sun’s previous positions included Senior Business Manager of Content Acquisition at the Chinese media company Tencent Sports, and Zong was previously active as a project consultant at the German Football Association (DFB) and media consultant for the Chinese sport media platform Sina Sports. The DFL subsidiary Bundesliga International is responsible for the representative office in China. Its CEO Robert Klein says: “ It’s great to be on the ground in China. The office is open and our local team is up and running. We have a deep relationship with Chinese sports fans and look forward to engaging with them day in day out, allowing them to experience ‘Football As It’s Meant To Be’ ”
The DFL had just opened a representative office for the Americas in New York in October 2018. Following shortly after, a strategic partnership was concluded for developing the Bundesliga brand and supporting football in India. The DFL is thus now present in what are by far the two largest economies in the world, USA and China, and has direct access to four of the seven largest economies globally – counting its home market of Germany and India. The Bundesliga became the first European league ever to be represented in Asia when it opened a DFL office in Singapore back in 2012.