Changchun Yatai F.C.
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| Full name | Changchun Yatai FC 长春亚泰足球俱乐部 |
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| Founded | 1996 |
| Ground |
Development Area Stadium, Changchun, China |
| Capacity | 25,000 |
| Owner | Yatai Group |
| Chairman | Liu Yuming |
| Manager | Lee Jang-soo |
| League | Chinese Super League |
| 2016 | Super League, 12th |
| Website | Club home page |
Changchun Yatai Football Club (simplified Chinese: 长春亚泰; traditional Chinese: 長春亞泰; pinyin: Chángchūn Yàtài) is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the Chinese Super League under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Changchun, Jilin and their home stadium is the Development Area Stadium that has a seating capacity of 25,000. The club's founder and main investor is the private Chinese conglomerate Jilin Yatai Group.
The club was formed on June 6, 1996 before making their debut in the third tier of China's football league pyramid in the 1997 league season. In 2000 they bought a position into the second division after they merged with Bayi Chaoneng. In 2001 they finished runners-up within their division, however they were denied promotion after they were embroiled in a match-fixing scandal. The club would reform and re-apply for a CFA playing license before they eventually gained promotion to China's top flight at the end of the 2005 league campaign. In the 2007 Chinese Super League they won the league title and participated in the 2008 AFC Champions League for the first time. They have since gone on to come second within 2009 Chinese Super League and also participated in the 2010 AFC Champions League.
Changchun Yatai was founded on 6 June 1996 by local conglomerate Jilin Yatai Group in Changchun, Jilin to take part in the recently fully professionalized league system, which allowed private enterprises to own their own clubs. The club would select a dragon kicking a ball as their crest while assembling the club's senior team and to make sure they had a competitive youth system they also brought in the best youth players from Shenyang before moving them into their recently created football training base at a cost of two million yuan, while the total cost of starting the whole enterprise would end up being 20 million yuan. For the next several seasons the club achieved very little until they bought a position into the second tier when the club took over Bayi Chaoneng at the beginning of the 2000 league season for fifteen million yuan, while during the season the team maintained an unbeaten home record but still finished in a disappointing fifth at the end of the season. The following season the club's manager Yin Tiesheng looked like he could improve upon last years results when he guided the club to a runners-up position and what looked like promotion to the top tier for the first time, however it was soon discovered that the 6 October 2001 game that Changchun won 6–0 against Zhejiang was fixed. This saw the club denied promotion, had all offending participants banned for a year while the club had three months to reform and re-apply for a CFA playing license. Despite this Yin Tiesheng stayed on and promoted future Chinese internationals Du Zhenyu, Zhang Xiaofei and Cao Tianbao from the club's youth team which was assembled from Shenyang into the senior team. These players in 2003 would go on to win the Jia B (second level) title, but the club were not promoted due to the creation of the Super League.
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