On January 5, 2017, only five days before Yin Mingshan's 80th birthday, the "motorcycle king" and "Chongqing's richest man" is now in Wuhan Jinsheng Group to take over the Chongqing Lifan Salon conference. He was dressed in a Zhongshan suit, shiny shoes, neatly combed hair, straight posture, like a strong middle-aged man.
In a brief three-minute speech, concise but full of emotion, he sent his blessing to the future of Chongqing soccer: "Prosperity."
However, on May 24, 2022, Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic Football Salon announced that it was withdrawing from the Chinese Super League and suspending its operations. 84-year-old Yin Mingshan heard the news and rushed to the salon, where he couldn't help but cry in the face of the current situation.
After asking the finance officer about the status of employee payroll, he indignantly stated, "How can you close a business when you haven't paid [wages]?"
As the "motorcycle king" and once the "richest man in Chongqing", Yin Mingshan has invested 17 years of hard work in Chongqing soccer.
Before 1997, Chongqing did not have a professional league team in the true sense of the word. That year, the Wuhan Avant-garde Hundao Salon moved to Chongqing, which ushered in a soccer feast with 10,000 people cheering in the city.
In 2000, Yin Mingshan purchased the Avant-garde Huandao Salon with a huge sum of 55.8 million RMB and renamed it Chongqing Lifan Football Salon. On November 12 of the same year, amidst the cheers of 40,000 Chongqing fans, Lifan won the AFC Cup with a 4-1 victory over Beijing Guoan, the first national championship in Lifan's history.
In the same year, Yin also spent 80 million yuan to acquire Chongqing Yanghe Stadium, creating the Lifan Yanghe training base.
In 2001, Lifan ranked 9th in the first A, and in 2002, it won the 6th place. According to the algorithm set by our Football Association, Lifan had a head start on the road to the Super League.
However, in 2003, Lifan's performance was in the doldrums, and in the last round of the last generation of the first A, but also suffered the plight of the "only need to lose in order to enter the Super League".
At that time, in addition to the Shaanxi and Bayi teams, which were already destined to miss out on the Chinese Super League, the other place was definitely going to come between Tianjin and Chongqing. For Chongqing to qualify for the Super League, it was necessary for Tianjin to lose on the road to Shanghai International, the favorites to win the title, and for them to lose at home to Qingdao.
As a result, Qingdao's CSL qualification points will surpass Tianjin's, Qingdao's ranking will rise and Tianjin's ranking will fall. As a result, Chongqing will be able to take the opportunity to overtake Tianjin. Therefore, even though Chongqing has no control over Tianjin's final away match against Shanghai, Chongqing must lose this match against Qingdao first.
But it was a crazy time, the Shanghai International, aiming for the title, "accidentally" lost 1-2 to Tianjin, and the dilemma of "losing to enter the Chinese Super League" didn't happen.
At the end of 2003, Yin Mingshan bought Yunnan Hongta's Chinese Super League shell with 38 million, Lifan "borrowed the shell to return to the soul", and became the first year of the Chinese Super League participating salons.
However, they didn't do well in the middle overs.
From 2004-2006, Yin invested nearly 30 million dollars a year, but due to the salon youth training is difficult to produce good seedlings, and did not introduce good internal and external assistance, three consecutive years at the bottom of the table, lucky to escape two years of relegation of the Lifan in the 2006 Super League resumed the elevation of the year, became the only relegation of the team in that year.
Despite relegation, Yin Mingshan's investment in the salon was not drastically reduced, with about 25 million invested each year in 2007 and 2008. 2008 saw Lifan's miraculous return to the Chinese Super League as 2nd in the Central League under Wei Xin's leadership.
Back to the Chinese Super League, Yin Mingshan will increase the investment to 30 million, but this still can not change the fate of the team relegation, known as the "elevator" Lifan, through the 2010 national football anti-gambling, back to the Chinese Super League again.
In 2010, Yin Mingshan increased his investment to 50 million, but due to the team's own lack of strength, the team ranked 2nd from the bottom of the league and was relegated again, which was Lifan's fourth relegation in 7 years.
The relegation of Lifan's impact is huge, due to Lifan's lackluster results, the Chongqing Municipal Government, led by the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Sports, the establishment of Chongqing Football Salon (Chongqing FC), many of the resources originally belonging to the Lifan tilted to the new team, the most obvious example is the home of Lifan was forced to go far away from the Olympic Sports Center to Yongchuan and Fuling.
It was then that Yoon hatched the idea of transferring the team, and over the next few years he invested around $30 million a year.
At the end of 2013, Chongqing FC Salon closed.In 2014, Yin Mingshan increased his investment, splashing 70 million, and Lifan succeeded in another Super League run.
Also in 2014, Lifan Group began to engage in strategic transformation, large-scale investment in new energy vehicles, for economic considerations, Yin Mingshan decided to transfer Lifan Salon.
At the end of 2014, Yin Mingshan transferred the salon to a company called Beijing Huaxia Guorui at a "cabbage price" of 10 million (only 2 million was actually paid).
Yin Mingshan has only one intention and that is to keep the team in Chongqing.
But as the true nature of this shell company was revealed, the Chinese Football Association eventually called off the transfer and Yin Mingshan took back ownership of the salon.
In early 2015, Yin Mingshan appeared on CCTV's Dialogue with Wang Jianlin, and for the first time, he also talked about why he transferred the salon.
"When my profit was more than 300 million, take 30 million, a small thing, but now when my profit is only 400 or 500 million, if I want to take 200 or 300 million, the burden is heavy, and it's not that I don't like soccer anymore, it's not that I'm sick of soccer, it's really because I feel that I'm not able to match it."
In order to keep the team and at the same time let the team have a good home in the future, in 2015 Yin Mingshan put in great efforts, investing more than 100 million for the whole year. 2016, the total investment of the salon was more than 120 million, half of which was funded by Yin Mingshan, and the team finally ranked 8th in the Chinese Super League and successfully relegated.
After that, Wuhan Jinsheng Group entered the ownership, acquired 90% of the shares of Lifan Salon, the salon was renamed Chongqing Jinsheng Lifan Football Salon.
Yin Mingshan, who received $540 million, stepped back but still retained a 10 percent stake in the salon, saying, "I want to be informed about Chongqing City."
"In 17 years, Yin Mingshan has dropped 840 million for Chongqing soccer."
"It's been 17 years of ups and downs, but it's always held up. In particular, I've seen that the number of people who love soccer here go from a handful to a majority, and from watching in general to burning with passion, and I think that's the best reward for me."
Yoon was 62 years old when he funded the soccer.
In 1979, at the age of 41, Yin Mingshan ended his 18-year-long labor reform, after which he worked as an English teacher and a publisher, and later made his first bucket of money by successfully distributing a series of 10-cent books for middle school students.
In 1992, at the age of 54, Yin Mingshan started his motorcycle manufacturing career, which later became "Lifan Motorcycle".
In 2000, Lifan Motorcycle became the top selling company in China by producing and selling 1.84 million engines and reaching 3.85 billion yuan in sales revenue, surpassing brands such as Jialing and Construction.
Yin Mingshan, 62, made the 2000 Forbes list of the 50 richest people in China with a net worth of 550 million yuan.
In 2003, Lifan entered the automobile field and began to build cars. In November 2010, Lifan Auto became the first private car company listed on the A-share market.
After the IPO, Yin, 72, said, "Fan Jin went crazy after he won the lottery, I won't, I'll be calmer."
That year, Yin became the "richest man in Chongqing" with a fortune of more than 11 billion dollars.
Not long after the "richest" halo, Lifan began to fall behind on the road of car manufacturing.
In 2016, the "Lifan new energy vehicle subsidy scandal", 2017, 2018, 2019, Lifan shares for three consecutive years of deductible net profit is negative, 2019 deductible net profit is a huge loss of nearly 4.4 billion yuan.
In 2020, Lifan's situation worsened, with debts running high. In August 2021, Lifan Group went bankrupt and was reorganized, with Geely's Li Shufu eventually becoming the de facto controller, and Yin Mingshan finally being able to "retire".
On the day he retired from Lifan Salon, Yin said, "I haven't left Chongqing for 79 years. In Chongqing, I changed from a pauper to a boss, from a grassroots in Chongqing to a civilized citizen of the city. I love this place very much and I am willing to make some contributions to Chongqing's economic construction, culture and education. Also because I love soccer, since I was a child, I love soccer, play soccer, kick soccer, so I invested in soccer in my old age. Soccer has given me a lot, gave me a healthy body, my virtual age of 80 years old, how to see have not stooped over well, this is thanks to soccer."
"When I took over soccer, Chongqing soccer was A-A, the equivalent of the Chinese Super League, and now when I handed over the dominance, it's still the Chinese Super League, and I didn't let the city down."
He said he was going to leave the soccer salon in the hands of his family, but the kids didn't have a hobby.
"I am indeed getting older and I had planned to leave the soccer side of things to my family, but children's hobbies are often different from their parents', so I don't force them to do anything, they do what they like, for example, my son is more interested in motor racing, so if he goes and does that, he can go and do that, and I don't force them to do that either. If my family is as obsessed as I am, then I will definitely continue to do it."
In the last three years, three Chinese Super League teams closed and quit, suspended operations, "stock reform" has become a "life-saving straw" for many Chinese soccer salons.
Chongqing Two Rivers Athletic Salon Suspends Operations
On the day the Chongqing Two Rivers Athletic announced its closing, speaking of the salon's stock reform, Yin said, "No one told me about it from start to finish!"
