About Chongqing Lifan

Chongqing SWM (simplified Chinese: 重庆斯威; traditional Chinese: 重慶斯威; pinyin: Chóngqìng Sīwēi) is a professional Chinese football club that participates in the Chinese Super League under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Chongqing and their home stadium is the Chongqing Olympic Sports Center that has a seating capacity of 58,680. They are owned by Dangdai International Group.

The club was founded in 1995 and originally called Qianwei (Vanguard) Wuhan before making their debut in the newly developed fully professional Chinese football league system where they started in the third tier within the 1995 league season. They would quickly rise up to the top tier and experience their greatest achievement of winning the 2000 Chinese FA Cup and coming fourth within the league. In 2002, they came fourth place in the last season of the Asian Cup Winners' Cup. After these achievements they struggled to replicate the same success and experienced their first relegation from the top tier in the 2006 league season. After gaining promotion in 2008 back into the top tier they were unable to remain in the top flight and were relegated once more in the 2010 season. In 2014, they finished the season at the top of Chinese League One (tier 2) division and won promotion to the Chinese Super League again.

According to Forbes, Chongqing is the 9th most valuable football team in China, with a team value of $76 million, and an estimated revenue of $17 million in 2015.