Italian tyre and cable giant Pirelli is to sponsor Chinese soccer for the next three years.
''It's the right time to invest,'' said Pirelli China General Manager Giuseppe Cattaneo at a press conference with China Super League (CSL) exec Lu Feng here Friday.
''We were presented with the right opportunity and we too it,'' Cattaneo said, adding that Chinese soccer was back on the upswing after a corruption crisis that hit crowd numbers and TV ratings.
Pirelli, whose chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera is a shareholder in Italian champions Inter Milan, has a record of sponsoring foreign soccer teams including Palmeiras in Brazil, Velez Sarsfield of Argentina and FC Basel in Swizerland, Cattaneo said.
He did not say how much Pirelli was putting into the 16-team CSL but denied claims that it was as high as the five million euros reported in the Chinese media.
Pirelli has had a production plant in China since 2005 and has some 1,000 sales outlets across the country.
CSL games will be broadcast on central TV channel CCTV and 20 regional networks, Cattaneo said.
