13 years after leaving the club, Man City cult hero is now multi-millionaire business mogul worth £20m
- Ex-Man City star Sun Jihai becomes a multi-millionaire
- The former defender represented the Citizens for six years and was the first from his country to score in the EPL
- The Chinese retired from active football in 2016 and launched his sports company the same year
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Former Manchester City defender Sun Jihai has launched himself into the world of multi-millionaires worth £20 million.
The 43-year-old retired Chinese football star spent six years at the Etihad Stadium making 130 appearances.
During his reign at the club, he also became the first player from the country to appear and score in the Premier League. He went ahead to score two more goals before being offloaded to Sheffield United in 2008.
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He retired five years ago after his football career failed to soar and he immediately co-founded his own sports data company called HaiQui [HQ] Sports.
Source: Getty Images
Daily Star claims that he already started the company in 2016 and his aim was to provide sports media, technology, and “datatainment”.
The business also has a talk show segment that features Jihai, a sports social media app called MiaoHi and a match prediction tool called Jihai App.
The publication added that he used his connections with City to get some massive funding wishing months of setting up.
China Media Capital, which is valued at $60billion, put a “multi-million dollar” investment behind the Maine Road hero the following December, alongside Tencent and the Yuan Xu Fund.
The company already had a link to the club after buying a 13 per-cent stake in City Football Group a year earlier at $400million.
Jihai’s big playing card in securing the investment was the MiaoHi app, a short-video sports social media platform that connects celebrities and fans.
With 2,000 celebrities on the database at the time, the app has now grown to a user base of 400million.
Legit.ng earlier reported that Manchester City have set a new record in English football following their 3-1 win over Swansea in the FA Cup quarter-finals as they reach the semis.
Goals by Kyle Walker, Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus were enough to hand the Citizens their 15th straight win in all competitions.
Although debutant Morgan Whittaker pulled one back for Swansea, it doesn’t stop Pep Guardiola’s side from setting a new record for most consecutive wins by an English club.
Oluwatomiwa Babalola is a sports editor with Legit.ng. He has over eight years of field and office experience in the media industry.
He graduated from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism in 2014 with HND in Mass Communication. Learn more about him on Twitter @TomiwaBabalola.
Source: Legit.ng
