Yunnan Hongta

Yunnan Hongta (Simplefied Chinese: 云南红塔) was a football club in Chinese Football Association Jia League.

Found as Shenzhen Jinpeng (Simplefied Chinese: 深圳金鹏) by the Shenzhen Jinpeng Group in 1996, the club won the membership of the second division (Chinese Football Association Jia League Group B) by defeating Xiamen in the final of the third and the lowest division Chinese Football Association Yi League. In the following year, Shenzhen Jinpeng lost the bid to the championship and sold the club to Yunnan Hongta Group, a tobacco producer. The team was renamed Yunnan Hongta. They played in Tuodong Stadium.

Yunnan Hongta made huge investment in the club. First, Qi Wusheng, who failed to lead China to qualify for the 1998 FIFA World Cup was introduced in 1999. Next, the club bought a lot of young players from the upper division (Group A). Under Qi Wusheng the team won the runner up position of Group B and was promoted to Group A.

In the next year, Ou Chuliang, the goalkeeper of the national team, was transferred from Shanghai Shenhua. Qi Wusheng's coaching in the national team made the team attractive to many national footballers. In 2002, another national team regular player Wei Qun followed Ou Chuliang and joined the team.

After settled down in Group A, Yunnan Hongta began to chase the championship in 2002. However, despite of leading in the first half, they end up with the seventh. In the same year, they hosted Real Madrid during their offseason.

After ranked the seventh in the following year, the Yunnan Hongta Group lost the patience for the national title and sold the team to the relegated Chongqing Lifan. The merge essentially ended Yunnan Hongta's hope of championship. Without the huge investment from the Yunnan Hongta Group, the new team end with the last spot in two years.

The researve team of Yunnan Hongta was not sold, however. They formed a new club named "Lijiang Dongba" and have been playing in the Yi division since then.

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