Lagardère Sports & Entertainment CEO Andrew Georgiou said that a Chinese club "could one day be a bigger brand" than ManU and it is "only a matter of time" before the Chinese Super League "challenges the English Premier League for world domination," according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. Georgiou said, "I think China has the financial capability to become the biggest league in the world. I think it (the CSL) will overtake the Premier League at some point. The only part that I don't know is how long it will take." Georgiou "pointed to the rapid growth of an affluent middle class in China," with talk of 550 million in that bracket by '20 compared to 150 million in '09, "as a driving force." He said, "So you've got a spending power in China that's so huge, it's going to dominate. In Europe, there's 700 million people but 56 leagues. In China, there's one league. So you've got that spending power focused at the moment on 16 clubs." Georgiou said that the "only unknown, and the element that would take most time, was how long it would take to develop a grassroots structure" -- something that skeptics see as a "stumbling block" (REUTERS, 3/6).
