In fact, Panyu's cultural and tourism initiatives map out the stance and attitude of the sports sector in Guangzhou and the city as a whole. Earlier, crosstown rival Guangzhou City declared its withdrawal from the professional league and suspended its operations. In contrast to the Guangzhou team, Guangzhou City's debt problem seems to have been resolved in a better way, and its equity reform buttresses the financial strength of the Guangzhou Automobile Group. Despite the fact that the shareholding reform has not yet been completed, Guangzhou Auto still invested to help its club solve its operational problems last season. However, Guangzhou City failed to move forward with the equity reform before submitting its application for debt settlement to the FA, mainly due to the refusal of the "higher authorities" to take the lead in making a decision. Guangzhou City, which is in relatively good financial shape, failed to get support, let alone Guangzhou, which is saddled with nearly 100 billion dollars of debt.
At a recent meeting on sports work in Guangzhou, leaders of relevant departments have clearly set out their goals for sports work in the new year. They plan to deepen the consolidation of the sports industry and focus on preventing and resolving major risks. Given the impact of the Guangzhou Qingyuan match-fixing incident, the Evergrande soccer school and the Guangzhou team have become the focus of sports industry rectification. With the plight of investor Evergrande, the Guangzhou team has become a key "risk" for prevention and resolution. In this context, Guangzhou team is likely to be marginalized in the future. Who would have thought that a few years ago Xu Jiayin and the fans of the Guangzhou team would have foreseen that the club would come to this point?
