FIFA Marketing Dir Thierry Weil said that the sponsorship of Chinese company Yingli Green Energy to the FIFA World Cup "helps promote football in the country," according to XINHUA.
Weil considers it "an honor" that a Chinese company "selected FIFA to do a sponsorship." Weil said that "having a Chinese company as a World Cup sponsor can help make football even more popular in the country, raise awareness and interest about the sport." He said,
"The Chinese population knows about football, about the World Cup, but having a local company being part of the World Cup, looking at the boards and seeing Chinese characters must be something that makes Chinese people extremely proud. It definitely promotes football."
Yingli "was the first Chinese company to sponsor the FIFA World Cup, back in 2010." The company "is now sponsoring its second tournament, this time in Brazil, and has supplied the solar energy panels used in the World Cup stadiums, in a move to get the Cup to be more sustainable." The Chinese team made its last World Cup appearance in '02 (XINHUA, 7/1).
