Xi Jinping’s plan to make China a soccer superpower is winning over fans in an unlikely place: the nation’s $7.7 trillion stock market.
Nine listed companies with ties to the country’s soccer league have surged an average 158 percent since the Chinese president first signaled plans in March 2014 to revive a sport plagued by match-fixing and an 82 ranking in FIFA’s international league. The gains, which outpaced the benchmark index by 42 percentage points, have accelerated in the past two months as Xi outlined a 50-point road map for soccer reform and put a member of the ruling Politburo in charge of the effort.
